Out of the Corner of the Eye
by wondertown9
Summary: Four years have passed since Drago's defeat. Yet the battle that resulted afterwards in the Demon Netherworld has attracted the attention of beings from beyond the borders of reality. Now, as Jade Chan graduates as an agent in practice of Section 13, old and new enemies start to move spurred by creatures that look at humanity from afar with curiosity and cruelty in their eyes.
1. They came from an Outer Place

**First of; Disclaimer: I don't own Jackie Chan Adventures; JCA and all its characters are the property of Phil Weinstein, Frank Squillace and Jackie Chan himself.**

 **Author Notes/Introduction to Story: Hello, Wondertown9 here with another story out of his mind for you. Yes, I have decided to take my chances into writing my own JCA fanfic. Now, let's get something straight here, I LOVE this show, and this little idea was struck in my mind for a while, pleading to get out… So I'm going to create my own continuation of the show, set (let's see… one, two…) FOUR! Four years after the end of season five. It's time to throw another set of mythos into the bunch. Of course, I will mix it with what the show has already provided, so don't worry. It's time to head to a new kind of Battle of Good vs. Evil!**

 **Welcome one and all; to the story Out of the Corner of the Eye!**

* * *

Jackie Chan Adventures

Out of the Corner of the Eye

Chapter One

They came from an Outer Place

* * *

 **From the journals of Marcus Malone. First entry. February of 1946.**

Have you ever got a glimpse of it? The reality, the truth of this universe, I mean. I suppose not, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this pages. I got a glimpse of it, once. It wasn't a pleasant experience, I assure you that¸ but at least I didn't. There are things in this world that humanity has believed as myths during our whole existence. Now I know that as false, but that's not what I try to explain over these pages. Maybe I'm not trying to explain anything, and this is just one of those… therapeutic writings that are becoming so popular lately.

No, what I want to speak about are not the legends and monsters that lurk in our shadows, but the ones that lurk and draft far away. I will… try to explain, in order for others to not commit the same mistakes as I did. But I must warn you. If you get a glimpse of it, you will never be able to forget it, it will never abandon you. I will try to explain. It all started months ago, when we were still in 1945 and the war was still fresh in our hearts. It was then when I first get a glimpse of it… even now I doubt that it was intentional on any of the parts. But I saw it… just out of the corner of my eye… But I _saw_ it.

* * *

 ** _Demon Netherworld. The present._**

Voids between dimensions are large. The Observer knows them too well, for Eons it has travelled them, both in order to entertain himself and to attend its duties. If you could really discern between what entertains the Observer and what are its duties. Its first duty… hard to remember. It had been the companion of the Messenger for some time, and albeit they had enjoyed their mutual company, they had to part separate ways after a couple of millennia; albeit they resumed their mutual company after the awakening. It had been the one to choose his half-brother's place for slumber, and then it had dedicated time to do its own biding. It was at this time that the Observer had decided that it wanted to be recognized as a 'He' by the life-forms divided in genres. So, since then and until now; the Observer has always been a He.

Probably due to one of his progenitors' nature; the Observer has always liked to amplify his knowledge. Of course, since one of his progenitors was the Memory of All; the Observer could possibly have asked for its enlightening, but he denied it. He is, as all of his kind, immortal, and on top of that, eternal. If they aren't to be surprises, then there is no thrill to explore and, well, Observe. Maybe this is the reason why the Memory of All is so… cold, in comparison with the rest of them. If the Observer had all the answers, he couldn't have met with such a beautiful creature as his current lover, and neither could he have enjoyed the struggles of the small ones in order to stop his half-brother's awakening.

Now he had encountered another Void, the space that keeps one Universe, one plain of existence, away from another. How irrelevant, his kind has been able to cross them like they were butter since the beginning of their existence. This one seems as boring as all of the previous ones. But wait, the Observer now heard something. A sound, small and unclear. Language, that's a language. It's really hard to discern, his kind hasn't made use of a language since his half-brother's awakening, since there was no need. Small, small, the creatures speaking are small. And yet, what they are saying… so similar to the words used by the small ones, back when they tried to stop his kind… Now, focus, there is something similar in them. Elemental control, one of them has much more in it than the other one… Focus, focus… Yes, there they are; the words…

"You are always out fighting wizards!" came the whinny remark of Drago, son of Shendu; to his father, the aforementioned Demon of Fire.

If the Observer had had eyebrows, he could have raised one of them.

Acclimatizing again to understand and comprehend the process of thoughts of smaller life-forms hadn't been as hard as the Observer had imagined at first. Probably due to his current lover's effect over his eternity. So, here he found himself, looking to a quite entertaining spectacle.

To the first two ones, seven new figures had joined short afterwards. And they seemed to have split in two groups.

They were small. But now that the Observer had looked upon them for some time, he was able to see that they were slightly bigger than the small ones. Not very much, but it would be stupid to deny it. Also, there was something deeper connecting them than their shared anatomical size. It ran beyond belonging to the same species. Family? Perhaps, very probably due to their interactions. But no, there was something else... Ah yes, there it was, the observer knew about it. Bagua, Pa Kua or maybe 八卦. Representations of negative aspects of physical reality. So this family belonged to one of those realities that worked with that Balance between Positive and Negative design. Fire, water, earth, wind, moon, sky, mountain and thunder. There was also a ninth one that seemed to be a combination of all those elements. And they seemed to be at war. How amusing.

The first group was composed by Moon, Thunder, Water, Wind and Fire. Fire seemed in charge, while the Observer had noted how Moon and Wind seemed to be playing along only to backstab Fire once the opposing side had fallen. Water and Thunder seemed reluctant to act under Fire's authority, but the Observer didn't sense any deception from them.

The second one was leaded by the multiple one. Following him were Earth, Mountain and Sky. No deception in their souls and minds; their logic the one of someone who follows the one who seems the strongest.

And on top of that, it seemed that the multiple one was the offspring of Fire. How entertaining! Or, at least that's what the Observer thought at first. These specimens... they seemed serious about this conflict. Now, that wasn't amusing. True, the Observer himself had been in conflict with his half-brother for many times through the eons, but they had been over triviality, something very akin to a friendly rivalry. Who should get to destroy a solar system, which cult should be for who... but in the end, the goal, the common goal that had been bestowed upon all of them was never questioned by none of the two. And when his half-brother awoke, the Observer supported him. These ones didn't seem to care, didn't seem to have a goal aside from reining over this Void. What kind of idiot desires to reign over a Void? Or over a simple world? What kind of idiot desires to reign at all? Reining it's unimportant. What matters is flowing. Going in and out into the essences of the universe, bend the basics of reality and also enjoy the tunes of the melodies that suns made while exploding.

And yet, there was something else. Not them per se, but the taunts they were throwing to each other... there was a constant in them. A word.

Now these Negatives of 八卦 (the Observer put the term in his own memory, it was a good one) were lying across the Void, some over pebbles and some others floating. The two sides of the war disposed as pieces of a chess game, prepared to be launched at each other.

"Give up, old man!" the multiple one yelled at Fire. "I have the powers of all of you combined, I am the strongest, and I deserve to reign here!" At those words, the Observer saw how the multiple one shot a bunch of mixed elements to the other party. Fire and Moon combined their powers and held a barrier to stop the attack. Ah, so Fire was a multidiscipline adept. Interesting.

"You idiotic child!" Fire yelled. "You deserve to reign? If you hadn't betrayed me so stupidly, we could have conquered the world! We could have been unstoppable! We could have finally disposed of...!

Chan. There was the word again. Again and again, not only in their words but also in their thoughts. Chan, Chan, Chan... The Negatives of 八卦 said and thought with anger, resentment and even... fear? Strange emotion, fear. Even for something like the Outsider, fear wasn't an unknown emotion. But what did they fear? Chan, Chan, Chan... It was time to get some answers.

* * *

Battle unfolded in the Demon Netherworld. Xiao Fung blew powerful streams of wind in order to attack Hsi Wu, but the Sky Demon evaded them thanks to his speed.

"You have to improve that aiming, brother Xiao!" the flying speedster said with an arrogant grin in his face.

"Practice makes the master." Xiao Fung said as he charged and blew another shot of air to his sibling.

While the demons of Sky and Wind battled, so did the ones of Thunder and Mountain. The bad blood between Po Kong and Tchang Zu was no secret between the rest of the Demon Sorcerers, so it was clear that, if presented with the opportunity, they were going to try and kill each other. The funny thing was that it was nearly impossible for one to destroy another. Lightning could do very little to the mountain, and the mountain was too slow to harm the lightning.

"Ahaha! Tickles!" Po Kong said as lightning impacted in her body.

"Overweighed lazy woman!" Tchang Zu insulted his sister as he levitated around her and shot lightning after lightning at her.

"I'm not overweighed, brother!" Po Kong yelled back as she moved slowly and tried to hit Tchang Zu with her arms. "It's just that I have a big skeleton!"

Bai Tza was doing far better against Dai Gui, as her agility and versatility were putting her far ahead of the Earth Demon. Dai Gui, no rock to use aside from the ones that floated around; and of course. no ground to dig in. It was clear that he was in the losing side of this fight, and as Bai Tza shifted to water and rematerialized in the same moment that he turned around, making him trip on her mermaid-like tail and fall to his back.

"Dai Gui thinks that he should have chosen more wisely his side…" the Earth Demon mumbled between his teeth.

"Oh? What is this?" Bai Tza said into a mocker tone. "Powerful Dai Gui is having second thoughts?"

And as an enraged Dai Gui got to his feet again and charged towards Bai Tza one more time, Drago fought both his father, Shendu, and his uncle, Tso Lan; the eldest of the Demon Sorcerers. The ancient Moon Demon had to admit that, even with a complete lack of discipline, his nephew had assembled quite the significant amount of power inside him. And Tso Lan knew that Shendu felt pride over his son's growth. But Drago's problem wasn't his lack of discipline (in that matter, Tzang Zu and His Wu were much worse) neither was his ambition. It was his youth, a youth that made him not understand when was the moment for betrayal and when for cooperation. Tso Lan supposed that only age could teach that lesson in particular. Or didn't that glorious reality that Shendu had crafted using the Book of Ages been a result of the eight siblings cooperation? Had the existence of that reality stopped His Wu and Tzang Zu from holding meetings in order to overthrown others from their territories? No, it hadn't. But Drago didn't understand that. No, he was too childlike for that. In some ways, very similar to how Shendu was millennia ago, when the eight siblings were young. And what had that youth cost them? Not very much… only their dominion over the whole Earth!

"I'm sick of this!" Drago yelled at his two seniors. "Always so high and mighty! Always so eager to look down on me! Well, never more, old man!" Drago shouted at the top of his lungs as he shot water and thunder at the same time towards the two older demons. Instead of blocking it with their powers, the two demons just dodged it by levitating away. Then Tso Lan saw how Shendu fired a torrent of fire from his mouth towards his son, just for the kid to absorb it by his mouth. Tso Lan repressed his need of scolding his brother. Of course Drago was immune to his fire based powers! He had fire chi inside of him! Sometimes Tso Lan really lamented Shendu's custom of… _playing_ with human females, but seeing how it had resulted, the Moon Demon had made clear in his head that mating with humans could result only in disaster.

"It's the end, old man!" Drago shouted again. "It doesn't matter what you throw at me, I will shrug it off as it's nothing! I am supreme! No one can stop me! I will annihilate every one that dares to stay in my path! I will…!"

" _Greetings_ " a voice that neither of the Demon Sorcerers of Drago could identify as speaking to their ears or their minds spoke. And upon that voice, the battle for the reign of the Demon Netherworld froze. Drago's speech ended abruptly, and every demon stopped to move, looking up to the sky over them.

Over them, the form of the observer had made itself present to the Negatives of 八卦. Of course, none of the demons knew that the Observer was, well, himself. Instead, they only looked in awe and horror at an enormous and changing mass of bright yellow tentacle-like things. There were several eyes over it, and after some time, the tentacles took the form of a gigantic monstrosity with two large arms made of compressed tentacles and no legs. It looked very similar to a enormous, nightmarish yellow octopus; its eyes focusing in each one of the sorcerers, as if it was scanning their souls. None of the eight siblings, and much less Drago, knew how to react to this new player in the game. It had came out of nowhere, and it was so big that it could hold Po Kong in its palm as she was nothing but a peanut.

" _Greetings_ " the Observer said again.

"G-Greetings?" Xiao Fung, being the most civilized of the Demon Sorcerers aside from Tso Lan, greeted the Observer back.

The Wind Demon's response seemed to please the thing, and then its eyes focused in the rest of the Demon Sorcerers. The demons exchanged looks with each other. It was clear that the thing was expecting something more.

"Greetings" Tso Lan said too, and shortly afterwards, Shendu did the same, and so did each one of the other siblings. Even Drago, overwhelmed by the sheer presence of the newcomer, bowed slightly and muttered a forced 'Hello' to it.

" _Good_ " the Observer said. " _You keep mentioning a word, Chan it is; in your thoughts. I want to know what this 'Chan' you speak about is._ "

None of the Demon Sorcerers seemed to understand what was going on… but their malicious instincts kicked in, even if they were mixed with fear. This could be an opportunity to take advantage of! And so, the first one trying was Xiao Fung. None of the others seemed to disagree with the fact. Xiao always had been the most diplomatic member of the family, and his tongue could be incredibly useful in cases like this.

"If I may…" the Wind Demon spoke. "Could you tell us who you are?"

" _I am me_." the Observer answered.

Xiao Fung found difficult to continue. It wasn't that he hadn't more questions, it was that he was afraid of the thing's response if he proved too insistent or provocative. In a moment of fear, he searched for the help of his siblings. Only Bai Tza seemed to stand up for him. "What my brother seems to desire to ask is not who, but rather what you are. Do you have a role or belong to a precise species?"

" _I am the patron of decadence, nihilism and shepherds._ " the Observer explained. " _And also I am Observer, traveler and also researcher._ " the Observer twirled and rolled over himself, his tentacles moved, but his eyes did not leave the demons. Looking at it made the heads of the eight siblings hurt. It seemed so... odd while doing those movements.

That didn't clear any much. Shendu was the next one to step into the conversation. While the old demonic dragon was arrogant and angry as no other, he wasn't a fool either, and knew how to play the subtle art of conversation. "Do you have a name?" the Fire Demon asked. "Or maybe a title we can refer to you by?" Shendu asked, faking a humble tone. This thing was powerful, that couldn't be denied. Shendu was sure that, if he played his cards well, maybe this thing could bring him freedom. If his siblings get it or not wasn't something that mattered to him.

The Observer twirled again, his shape losing form almost completely and then returning to its standard-yellow-armed-octopus like guise. Shendu interpreted it as the thing's way of showing thought process. " _Name..._ " the Observer said, and this time Shendu was sure that it was speaking in his head. " _My name is not spoken, for I am the Unspeakable One. Yet, if you wish to refer to me by name..._ " the Observer's form tensed, as if reaffirming itself and his argument.

" _Call me Hastur, the King in Yellow._ "

The name let a strange feeling upon the Demon Sorcerers. Even the likes of Shendu, Dai Gui and Tzang Zu found something dreading about it. It wasn't the name, or the title, those weren't ominous in the slightest, it was just that... there was something in the sound of the name, in the way in bounced back inside their heads against the bone of their skull... something was wrong with that name.

" _Now, as I said upon my arrival,_ " the Observer, or as he will be know from now on, Hastur; continued speaking " _I am curious about this Chan you keep mentioning. It seems that it is responsible of your current estate. I wish to learn about it._ "

There it was desire. That was something that it wasn't unknown to any demon. After all, each one of them was a master of manipulating that emotion in one or another way. If this thing wanted to know about Chan, whatever reasons it had, they could make a deal. This was a very useful opportunity and the only thing needed, but of course, someone had to ruin it. After all, Tso Lan had stated it earlier, youth is such a troublesome thing...

"Now listen here, you overgrown octopus!" Drago yelled, his foolish bravado imposing itself to his fear. "I don't who or what you are, but you won't get in the way of the victory I deserve! Much less for so stupid reason as...!"

"YOU IDIOTIC FOOLISH BOY!" Shendu yelled at the top of his lungs to his son. The thing that made Drago look completely surprised at his progenitor was that Shendu hadn't sounded angered or hateful. He had sounded worried.

"Father?"

" _Ah, a volunteer_ " Hastur spoke. " _Magnificent._ "

Drago's body tensed itself to the extreme, as if it had suffered from instant and extreme rigor mortis. Then his eyes shut wide open, and Drago felt something dwelling, crawling and piercing through his mind, exploring every corner, unveiling every secret and mystery the son of Shendu had inside him. And as Hastur looked at him, Drago couldn't avoid looking back at the King in Yellow. Oh, what a foolish act. The things he saw... the things he saw!

The scream that left from Drago's mouth was deafening and frightening to the extreme. It wasn't a scream product of pain, no. It was a product of pure horror. His eyes started to cry blood due to the sheer monstrosity that was Hastur's mind. Or whatever he had as a mind. After minutes that Drago felt as years, his body started to horribly and painfully morph, getting smaller and smaller each second that passed. When his screams ended, Drago was back in his more humanoid, small form; all the chi he had gained from the Eight Inmortals' Relics gone. Drago was left floating in the void of the Netherworld, his body trembling and eyes injected in blood, his face contorted into a totally scared expression, incoherencies being mumbled by the depowered half-demon.

"Impossible..." Shendu whispered as he saw his son return to his former form. It didn't make sense! Once completely bound with the eight remnants of chi, it should have been impossible for them to be removed! And yet there was Drago, completely drained of the power he had fought so hard for. Shendu noted a grim look taking over Hsi Wu, Po Kong and Dai Gui. They had just accepted that they had lost their war. But none of that mattered to Shendu anymore; he kept staring at the mumbling form of his offspring. A strange feeling took over his heart. Was it sadness over his son's condition? No, no; it couldn't be. But wounded pride... yes, that was something Shendu could identify as what he was feeling now. True, Shendu himself had been planning into killing his own son, but he was his son! If there was someone who could make that claim, that was him, and no one else! And what this Hastur had done (again, the name producing a headache) hadn't killed him, but reduced the half-demon to a pathetic estate... that was an even worse insult to Shendu's pride. "What did you do?!"

" _I wanted to know, and I took the answers I needed._ " Hastur spoke again. " _It is not of my fault if he decided to look to me as I was looking to him. Still..._ " Hastur's form twirled again, but this time it didn't look like a representation of thought, instead showing amusement. " _Jackie Chan. A... Human being..._ " Hastur looked down at the Demon Sorcerers. " _Humans that... defeated you. I hadn't called them that since... and now I have found them again, a reflection..._ " an idea took form in Hastur's mind. And if his body had had something similar to what we call 'mouth', now it would probably been forming a smile. He started to leave, but the yells of the Demon Sorcerers stopped him.

"Wait!" His Wu shouted. "You are going to left us here, just like that?! You can't do that!"

"His Wu is right." Tso Lan stated, more calmly than his youngest brother. "You have taken something from us, and you have left our brother's child in a fatal state. I know it may sound… disrespectful of me to say this, but maybe we could ask you for compensation?"

Hastur twirled again, indicating more amusement. " _I looked inside the former multiple one's head_ " he said, referring to Drago. " _You wish for freedom, don't you? I can give you that. Is that what you want?_ "

All the Demon Sorcerers answered with a deafening 'Yes!' to the question, except for Shendu. The Demon of Fire kept silence and then, after several minutes, he answered in a cold tone. "No."

This surprised the other seven siblings. What was their brother thinking? Then, felling like the biggest of fools, Tso Lan caught onto what had happened. But it was too late to retaliate or avoid their mutual, incoming fate. A deafening sound echoed through the whole Demon Netherworld. Just as it sounded, each one of the Demon Sorcerers felt something over their bodies. Something felt wrong among them, a thought that was confirmed when their flesh and bones started to decompose themselves into dust.

"What is happening?!" a terrified Po Kong asked while her humongous body crumbled and collapsed over itself.

Hastur twirled one more time, this one slowly. " _I had dissembled the electromagnetic energetic force that keeps the particles of your body together_." the King in Yellow explained. " _Without it, your flesh will become cells, your cells will break into molecules, molecules into atoms, atoms into neutrons, positrons and negatrons; those will break in quarks, the quarks into... nothing_."

The Demon Sorcerers didn't have even time to think. In a matter of seconds, their physical existences had been reduced to microscopic particles. Shendu watched as seven spectral forms disappeared from his sight, each one in a particular direction. "Astral forms..." the Fire Demon whispered. Hastur had indeed granted his siblings freedom. In their astral forms, they could leave the Netherworld and roam free in the human world... as nothing but harmless spirits, if not wanting to possess a human or an animal and fight with the body's original conscience until they had surprised and erased it. Shendu remembered his time inside Valmont and how unpleasant had been to share a body with the egomaniacal crime lord. If not for the urge of freeing his brethren, Shendu could have dedicated all his time into overpowering the man's conscience and getting his body all for himself and then adapt it into something more fitting for his demonic majesty. The Demon of Fire supposed that his siblings will follow that course of action once they had encountered a body. He then sensed some kind of relief, like if someone had got something incredibly heavy out of his shoulders. Looking up, he discovered how Hastur had left the scene, no trail of the monstrosity to be seen, gone as subtlety and silently as he had come.

That left Shendu alone, looking at the mentally and soul crippled form his son had been reduced to. He turned his draconic head and looked around, the Netherworld extending itself to where his eyes reached, and his were pretty strong eyes. He was alone, no one left to dispute his rule or to challenge him. Shendu chuckled, finally he was lord of his own realm. A lifeless, dead realm that was devised as his and his family's prison by the Eight Immortals and where no one would follow his orders. Perhaps he must have accepted the monstrosity's offer and be freed, even if in his astral form. He looked at Drago once again while the half-demon continued to mumble incoherencies. Shendu asked himself if the power of the horse talisman inside of him would be able to heal a mind as it could heal a body. " _The powers of the Talismans…"_ Shendu thought for a moment. He had almost forgotten upon the monster's arrival, he still had the powers of the Twelve Noble Animals inside of him, including one that let him exit his own body in an astral form. A plan started to form in Shendu's mind, a plan of revenge against the so-called King in Yellow. But somehow, he tried to think about it without thinking in the great monstrosity. His head still hurt each time he thought about its appearance, or its name…

* * *

 ** _In another universe…_**

Hastur flew, or more precisely, the King in Yellow drafted between worlds and stars in the search of someone. This universe was… calling it chaotic would be a euphemism. After all, this place was something that Hastur and the ones of his kind called 'home'; the Court of the Daemon Sultan itself. The massive form of the King in Yellow continued his search, until it found the one he had been looking for.

" _Half-brother_." Hastur spoke, again in both mental and physical way. He didn't get an answer at first, so he thought that he must be more insistent. " _Cthulhu, I am here to speak with you, half-brother. You who are the High Priest of the Outer Gods, who like me, are the child of our father Yog-Sothoth, the Memory of All, the Key and the Gate; and also the child of his offspring, Nug, who is also my sibling. You who are called the Great Dreamer; answer me._ "

Before the mass of yellow tentacles and eyes that Hastur was, raised another imposing form of similar size, maybe even bigger. As Hastur was of a pale yellow, this was a mass of pale green that quickly took the form of a somehow titanic and draconic being with features such as wings and a scaled torso, that had tentacles as arms and a head that looked like an enormous dark green octopus. Two thin lines in the head served him as eyes, although he didn't like to use them. For many eons, Great Cthulhu had used this form in order to sleep in the sunken city of R'lyeh. This was the High Priest's standard form in order to deal with 'visitors'. Now, Cthulhu wasn't one very akin to be disturbed, usually spending his time just floating around the cosmos. Truth to be told, since his awakening and posterior summoning of the Outer Gods, his 'task' had ended, and there was very little to do, except for floating and dreaming. He didn't like to be disturbed, but he also knew that Hastur didn't come to him unless he had something incredibly important to say; such was the relationship between the two half-siblings.

" _What is it; Hastur or sometimes known as Xastur or H'aaztre, my half-brother and also uncle; the King in Yellow; the Unspeakable; and also the Observer; that you want to discuss with me?_ " Cthulhu asked, both in mind and body; even if he knew the answer just by the fact that he was speaking in a language. " _You are speaking… like a Human._ " Great Cthulhu hadn't forgotten the name of that species. For many millennia they had either worshipped or opposed him, and even if he thought of them as nothing but flies, he could never forget them. After all, it had been the world they inhabited the place for his slumber. " _Why? How?_ "

" _Read me, half-brother_." Hastur said.

Great Cthulhu did as the King in Yellow had requested, looking through the memories that his half-brother had gained from Drago and his trip to the Netherworld. " _A reflection_ ," Cthulhu said. " _You never found a reflection until now, Hastur. It is… quite interesting. Are you suggesting that I may take this other as my new place of slumber?_ "

" _That is my proposition_ " Hastur explained. " _Since your awakening nothing had transpired upon this universe that it wasn't out of our action, due to the Court of Azathoth extending itself across the stars. And even if the Nuclear Chaos still sleeps, you may agree, this existence of us just longing and floating over is starting to feel rather… monotonous after so many thousands of millennia._ "

" _You spend too much time in the company of Nyarlathotep_." Cthulhu stated. " _And those children of Carcosa too. You are starting to sound exactly like the Messenger of the Outer Gods._ "

" _Perhaps._ " Hastur answered. " _I should take this matter to the Crawling Chaos too; he will like to know about it._ "

" _Nyarlathotep will agree with your idea_." Cthulhu stated. " _He misses those small ones; they entertained him like no other race has_." Cthulhu twirled over himself too, a gimmick he shared with his half-brother. " _And these humans seem more resourceful than the ones we were familiar with..._ " Great Cthulhu decided to make his decision clear. " _Tell Nyarlathotep that I had agreed with you. For long I had longed for a place for sleeping and dreaming like it were the seas of that world in which my sunken R'lyeh was housed._ "

" _Then it is settled_." Hastur spoke, and started to float away. " _I will head to Kadath now._ " Hastur started to leave, not without giving a farewell to Great Cthulhu. " _Dream well, half-brother_." and Hastur left Cthulhu to his own bidding.

" _Jackie Chan..._ " Cthulhu thought before drifting away into the void between the stars. " _I wonder, will I dream about you? Or will you dream about me?_ "

* * *

Hastur's next stop was Kadath, the place that existed without existing, an intersection between the physical plane and the Dreamlands. The city-world that usually housed the Crawling Chaos, Nyarlathotep; the Messenger of the Outer Gods; the thousand-faced-one; the one that was regarded not only as one of the Daemon Sultan's offspring, but also as the Nuclear Chaos' mind itself given will and personality of its own. Hastur knew that, if there was one thing in the whole multiverse, in all the plains of existence that must be feared over the rest; that was Nyarlathotep. Histrionic, volatile, malefic, chaotic... and yet playful and, if pleased, such a provider of good company. Convincing his old travelling companion wouldn't be very difficult. In his own way, Nyarlathotep had loved Humanity, understood Humanity. They had so many things in common... There was a time when the Crawling Chaos had been known only as Nyarla. It had been Humanity who had given him the 'hotep' suffix. And he had kept it. Maybe the Messenger had thought of it funny, maybe he had grown fond of it. But he had lamented the lost of the ones that had given it to him. Without Humanity, the chaotic prince of Kadath felt so bored. And so Hastur only needed to do for him what the Negatives of 八卦 had done for the King in Yellow. Use something that gains interest.

Hastur started to project the memories he had gained from the now former multiple one, images of a human male pass a third of his life wearing a blue pullover; an old man with a wrinkled and stern yet caring expression in his face; a big man with a round body and a kindly spirit; and a young female child wearing an almost perpetual expression of curiosity.

The palace of Kadath that served as Nyarlathotep home from time to time crumbled in a matter of seconds, and then was rebuilt at the same pace. Towering over Hastur himself, a black mass of tentacles, wings and mouths was laughing at such intensity that it could be heard light years away, and even in the silent space were no sound can traverse. The laughter of the Crawling Chaos travelled to every corner, as it marking the start of a great event.

" **HUMANITY LIVES!** " Nyarlathotep exclaimed. Hastur's form twirled again, this time in excitement at the fact that Nyarlathotep was as eager as him for this reflection.

* * *

Hastur had done everything in his... well, not-hands. Once things had been spoken with Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos had taken matters to the Key and the Gate; the Memory of All. The Lurker at the Threshold had given his approbation. So now the only thing that lasted was to wait for the superposing and merging. Well, Hastur had the ideal place for that. In the depths of space, far away from the Court of the Sultan; was Carcosa. Just like Kadath was the city-world that Nyarlathotep used more usually; Carcosa was Hastur's. And just like the Messenger of the Outer Gods was fond of humans; Hastur found himself (with the passing of the millennia) fond of the inhabitants of Carcosa; humanoid creatures that stood normally two and half meters tall. The children of Carcosa had a strange stone-like skin with a wet moisture always over them. Their skin was of a sickening scarlet, always with some marks that looked like cracks in marble. Their eyes were usually of a amber tone, with blue sclera. For teeth they had three lines of little yet sharp fangs, and their tongues were snake-like and of a deep purple.

Over the children of Carcosa and the city-world itself, ruled and governed Cassilda; former Princess of Carcosa and now Queen of these lands and Hastur's sporadic lover. The woman of Carcosa had features that could only be described as 'geometrically sharp' and yet soft at the same time; a mane of curly and rough hair of an obsidian tone fell from her head until it reached her ankles. Enveloped in regal dresses all the time, Cassilda expended her time in the magnificent gardens of her palace, either singing or making sure that her kingdom marched as she desired. She didn't long for Hastur, because even if they enjoyed their mutual company, she knew that the likes of the Unspeakable went and came as they pleased. Still every time he came to her, she greeted him and enjoyed his company. It wasn't what you would call love; it was just… mutual interest. Hastur enjoyed the company of Cassilda, and the Queen's reign over the dim city-world was virtually unchallenged when you have a Great Old One supporting you. Would that stop Hastur from, if necessary, destroying Carcosa with its own coils? No. Would that make Cassilda a submissive, fanatical follower and puppet of the King in Yellow? No.

Cassilda felt the change in the air and in the gravity surrounding her that signaled Hastur's arrival. How many years had she spent without him? Not much really, just a couple of centuries. This could mean that either he had grown tired (which was ratter improbable, for not calling it impossible) or he had found something. Albeit the palace of the Queen had been given shape and space to house Hastur titanic form, he often compressed himself into the form of the King in Yellow; a slender figure garbed in a pale yellow cloak, with two wings composed of pure white feathers at his back, skeletal hands and legs; and tentacles of the same color of the cloak pouring from the sleeves and the bottom of the cloak. Maybe there was no cloak as it there had not been a mask, maybe it was just the form that his body took every time that he donned this particular guise.

"You have returned once more" Cassilda said when the King in Yellow descended upon her gardens, white wings flapping majestically as if emitting a tranquilizing sound. "Have your travels paid off to you?"

Hastur approached Cassilda. In his King in Yellow guise, he only stood a head tall over her. "They have." Hastur spoke, this time with only his voice. "I have found a reflection."

Cassilda titled her head in curiosity, an as the two regents of Carcosa started to walk the gardens, Hastur provided her with the same images he had showed Great Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep. Cassilda smirked in an almost unnoticeable manner. "Another universe, this one without the influences of the Court; with another Earth." Cassilda made a pause and her smile widened. "I never had the pleasure to meet with Humanity, neither had my dear Camilla, nonetheless with one so resourceful and bend into winning against superior forces. Are we moving there?"

"Yog-Sothoth is going to superpose our reality to theirs." Hastur explained. "He and Daoloth will insert us in the main temporal chain of their universe. It will be as if we had always been there. And once is done, we will have been there."

"Yet you don't fear that some of them will notice?" Cassilda asked. "Or that some like the Mi-go will protest?"

"Mi-go has nothing to protest about, their quest about attaining intuition from Humanity didn't end as they wished, so this prospect only falls in their favor." Hastur explained. "Speaking of Camilla, where is she? She is normally with you the entire time."

"My sister has hit something akin to a ' _rebellious phase_ '." Cassilda explained. "She goes in and out the palace at every hour. In a way, I think that maybe she has learned that from you, my King."

Hastur didn't object to that. Then he felt something stirring the reality around them. "Ah, it seems that the merging of the universes and timelines has started."

"So we are departing to a brand new reality." Cassilda explained. "I hope that this Humanity doesn't break under the machinations of the Great Messenger before I have met them."

"I suppose not. Nyarlathotep will be more cautious this time." Hastur reassured her. "Are you going to sing until we depart?"

"Indubitably," Cassilda answered.

Gravity, space and time started to fluctuate around Carcosa and the rest of the universe that was now under the grasp of the Outer Gods and the Great Old Ones. Promises of a brand new universe to conquer, investigate, or play with laid ahead. And as the… ' _minds',_ of many of these creatures centered themselves on the Humanity that had triumphed over so many adversities and others just thought about the merging as if it was just , as the two realities merged in one courtesy of the Key and the Gate; Cassilda sang a song for her and the King in Yellow.

Along the shore the cloud waves break,

The twin suns sink beneath the lake,

The shadows lengthen

In Carcosa.

Strange is the night where black stars rise,

And strange moons circle through the skies

But stranger still is

Lost Carcosa.

Songs that the Hyades shall sing,

Where flap the tatters of the King,

Must die unheard in

Dim Carcosa.

Song of my soul, my voice is dead;

Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed

Shall dry and die in

Lost Carcosa.

* * *

 ** _Earth. San Francisco; Uncle's Rare Finds._**

Deep in the night, an old Chinese man awoke in cold sweat and a frightened expression. This elder, only knew as 'Uncle' to his own family, got up from his bed and descended to the kitchen. He took the remnants of the day's tea and heated them a little in the fire. He served himself a cup and drank it slowly, letting the heat to warm his old body. He had felt something… weird. It hadn't been the willies, Uncle was sure of it. It had been something more. Or maybe it had been just a nightmare, a memory of a past he thought forgotten that had returned in his dreams to haunt him. And yet he had the sensation that something had changed, abruptly and unnaturally.

"Sensei?" a deep yet kindly voice asked from the door of the kitchen. Looking in that direction, Uncle saw Tohru, his apprentice in the ways of chi magic. Well, not apprentice anymore, Tohru had graduate a few years ago, when they had defeated the last great evil that had appeared, showing humanity his horrible face. And yet Tohru still insisted into referring at the Chinese Elder as 'Sensei'. Uncle supposed that it was the way of showing respect that the gentle giant had. A part of Uncle, however, could heard something very similar to 'Father' in the way Tohru said that word.

"Are you alright?" the japanese sumo asked again.

The old man took a few sips from his cup. "Don't worry Tohru. Uncle just have a reaaaally bad dream."

"No 'willies'?" Tohru asked, approaching the table and sitting into a chair that was larger than the others, especially bought for him.

Uncle shook his head. "No, Uncle hasn't had willies in a long time, not since dragon-boy was banished along Shendu four years ago." Uncle smiled and reclined himself into his seat. "I suppose Uncle is just getting old... his body is telling him to prepare for graaaave!"

"Sensei, don't joke with that." Tohru said to his mentor, albeit he couldn't suppress a litlle smile.

"Bah, Uncle has lived enough. He will let shop and position as Wizard to you and then go away." He laughed a little. "Just promise to not cry in his funeral."

"Shouldn't the shop be left to Jackie?" Tohru asked. "He is the archeologist, the one that understands what these objects are."

"Bah!" Uncle yelled, regaining his usual stern but stronger demeanor. "Jackie is good archeologist, but very baaaaad salesman! And Uncle thinks that Jackie will cry too muuuch in Uncle's funeral!"

"Sensei..." Tohru repeated, this time with a little more concern Uncle's 'joke'.

"It was just an old man's raving, Tohru." Uncle assured him, and then stretched his old body. "Uncle must return to sleep; he needs energy to stand proudly in niece's grand day tomorrow."

Ah yes, Jade's graduation as an agent of Section 13. It stroke as something particularly weird to the japanese chi wizard that Jade, who had just turned sixteen a couple of weeks ago, was now a few hours away of getting officially recognized as an agent of a secret governmental agency. But well, Tohru thought that Section 13 wouldn't be a secret agency if they weren't unorthodox, so the mountain of a man supposed that it was in their line to let Jade became an agent at sixteen. Tohru sighed internally. The time they could spend with Jade had been decreasing over the years. School, then High School, lessons in espionage and combat not only with Jackie, but with other teachers that not only taught her how to fight with the body, but also weapons and guns, a thing that Jade herself didn't like in her own.

"I just don't like it," she had commented to him in one of the times the two of them had been together alone.

"I think that both of us need to rest, Sensei." Tohru said, and both men rose from their seats and went to their rooms. Before getting inside, however, Tohru asked one last question to his mentor. "Sensei, the bad dream, what was it about?"

Uncle looked strangely at Tohru, as if trying to decide if telling him or not. "Uncle doesn't really now," the Chinese elder said. "It was just bad."

The japanese giant left his mentor alone, and went to sleep on his own. Uncle returned to his room and entered his bed. He hadn't told Tohru, but he himself doubted about the significance of the dream he had have. Bah, it was probably just a dream. And so, the patriarch of the Chan family returned to his sleep, the only thing troubling his mind tha his nephew will arrive in time to Jade's graduation. And yet, the mocking voice still echoed distantly…

"You speak about justice, yet you let a good man die…"

* * *

 **Author Notes: Sing it with me, everybody: I love… Eldritch Abominations! I just love their unformed and continental sizes… and how they drive you… insane! With just looking at them…**

 **I bet that no one was expecting that in a JCA fanfic, because no one expects Cthulhu. Never. I fact, why hasn't anybody thought about this before? The Cthulhu Mythos are pretty interesting and have a lot of potential for this kind of stories, and I had always thought that they could make a great thing with JCA. But of course, in order to see how that develops, the story has to grow. And you know how I work, I like setting the 'final bosses' since the start and then let the heroes and smaller villains to drive the plot until the final confrontation… which is what is going to happen here. The Demon Sorcerers (sans Shendu) are out and maybe or maybe not in human bodies, after all.**

 **Let me a review or a PM about what do you think about the idea, or even suggestions about how the plot should unfold (I had the general line for the story overall, but if you have propositions about some scenes or chapters, I would gladly listen to them.) so I can read them. Thanks for reading, anyway!**


	2. Graduation and politics

**Disclaimer: I don't own Jackie Chan Adventures; JCA and all its characters are the property of Phil Weinstein, Frank Squillace and Jackie Chan himself.**

 **Author Notes: Many thanks to author Zim'sMostLoyalServant for being this story's first reviewer; and many thanks to the guest reviews received in December 28 and January 1 too. For more notes, see end of the chapter**.

* * *

Jackie Chan Adventures

Out of the Corner of the Eye

Chapter two

Graduation and politics

* * *

 **From the journals of Marcus Malone. Second entry. February of 1946.**

I suppose I should start telling something about myself rather than start directly with what I try to accomplish writing this. I was born in 1915, during the first war. I was born in New York, and of course, not under the name 'Marcus Malone'. Due to that the war never got here, I got a peaceful childhood. Since I had use of reason, I have been a curious kid, an adventurous one. I suppose that was what led me to being a journalist, which I was until the second war started. No, I didn't fight the Nazis, not in the usual way. But I would have been glad to put a bullet into one of those Krauts' skulls. I'm Jewish, and even if not a practitioner, I hate those bastards. But funny thing, I think that I hate them because of how people from America treated me. Even now, there are still some idiots that look at us like we are nothing. To Jews, Blacks, Chinese... don't these fools know that old, good, white, Christian men wouldn't be here if not for our people? But I hope that will change now, or with time.

Anyway, during the second war I worked as something akin to a propagandist. Creating and distributing pamphlets, and messages for newspapers, or even movies! Those were such good times, the guys and I all gathered writing or drawing; I remember that one time when Ethan started doing caricatures of Goebbels as a gigantic worm… it was hilarious. When the war ended in Europe, they send me with the guys... with _my friends_ , to whatever was left of Germany. There was where I met the man who has changed my life... to worse. I blame it to my damn curiosity more that I blame it into that blasted book he gave me. Maybe that is the problem of our species as a whole, you know? Maybe if there were less curious kids... maybe we wouldn't be in this situation.

* * *

 ** _San Francisco. Section 13._**

Drops of warm water fell over the naked body of a sixteen years old girl. The drops fell over the girl's head and they ran through her wet black hair until they fell from the tips of her bangs to her body and they travelled across her skin until they reached her feet and her toes and then fell to the floor of the shower. The teen closed her eyes, and inhaled the fuming and dank air that clouded the insides of the shower. Slowly, she started to move the muscles of her back, then her arms and legs, her necks, face, even the smallest of muscles in her fingers started to move and harden at her command, and then she relaxed them al of a sudden, exhaling the air she had previously inhaled and opening her eyes slowly.

If there was a word that described Jade Chan perfectly, that was over-energetic, or maybe hyperactive. But even the most energetic of persons can enjoy themselves in a relaxing moment inside the shower. Jade raised one of her arms and searched for the towel she always let at one of the borders of the shower. She didn't like to get out of the shower without, at least, having dried out a little. The change in temperature made her shiver, and if she was wet, the sensation just increased. She didn't like cold.

Exiting the shower with the towel around her body and quickly putting a new one over her hair, Jade crossed the door that connected this bathroom with her private room in Section 13. During the last four years she had been living in this room practically all by herself, only seeing Jackie, Uncle, Tohru and the others sporadically. During the last months it had become almost impossible for her to left this place, going out only in her birthday, with all the preparations for the ceremony and the last time tests. She searched in her closet for the clothes that Captain Black had indicated her to wear in the graduation ceremony. Graduation, she thought to herself, and then, incapable of avoiding it, she jumped in the air out of pure excitement.

"WHOHO!" Jade shouted. "Who's a totally awesome agent of Section 13? Well, your badass Jade Chan, of course!"

She laughed at her own display of childish behavior in the front of the mirror she was looking at. Her sudden jump had made the towel of her head to fell to the ground, and she picked it while laughing. She then dried her body and dressed up. Looking at her own reflection in her mirror, Jade was greeted with her own self, wearing a dark blue suit with an American cut. It wasn't one of those female suits with molesting skirts, instead being a normal male suit that she had chosen for this occasion. Captain Black had said that she could choose whatever type of formal clothing she wanted to wear during her great day, so she had chosen this one. _I swear to God_ , she thought, _that in the first moment this day ends, I will never stop wearing anything that isn't a pair of jeans_.

She then breathed deeply and calmed herself. "Okay, world," she said to her reflection once again. Jade Chan exited her room into Section 13's corridors. Heading towards the auditory where the graduation was going to be housed, Jade couldn't avoid feeling nervous. But of course, this was one of her longest and deepest dreams come true. No more treating her like a kid, no more getting her out of danger, no more pats in the top of her head. No, now she had a title and a badge that marked her as totally capable agent of a secret governmental agency. That categorized her as a 'made of awesome' person you wouldn't want to mess with. A part of her, however, felt reassured that her family, especially Jackie, was going to be with her in the auditory.

"Prepare yourself because here I come!"

* * *

"Sir, I know that you are a busy man, but I have my own compromise to attend to today..." a man in a blue pullover and a pair of khaki pants talked into a phone while a taxi drove him towards his uncle's antique shop. Jackie Chan was many things, but he would never put business over family. "I am very sorry to have to leave Brazil before our meeting, Mr. Banski, but..."

"Mr. Chan." the dried voice of an old man answered from the other side of the line. "I think that this conversation is going to get us nowhere. I will go to San Francisco by myself and speak with you there. Are you free...? I don't know, maybe the next Monday?"

"Well... yes, I think." Jackie answered, a little surprised. "Thank you very much, sir. And sorry once more."

"No need for that, Mr. Chan." the apparently called Mr. Banski said. "I don't like people who apologize continuously. And besides, it was I who delayed our meeting until it was too late. I will see you soon."

The call ended, and Jackie put his cellphone back in his pocket. _That went better than I thought..._ the archeologist and expert martial artist (and from time to time, demon hunter) said in his own mind. He looked by the taxi's window to San Francisco's streets. They were full of people, as per usual in this hour of the day. He looked at the watch that adorned his wrist. He had still plenty of time, but the sooner he arrived at Uncle's shop, the better.

"We're arriving at Chinatown, sir." the taxi driver said while turning a corner. "The place was... eh..."

"Uncle's Rare Finds." Jackie clarified to the man.

"Right, the antique shop." the driver said. He took another corner, and after a few seconds the vehicle stopped right in front of the old shop. The taxi driver turned slightly around. "It will be twenty one dollars, sir."

"Twenty one?" Jackie asked, a little perplexed, but the only thing he got in response was the tired look of the driver. "Fine, here." Jackie handed him the money and then got out of the taxi. He took his luggage and, making sure to not trip and fall to the ground, he crossed the door of the shop.

"Uncle! It's me; I'm back from- ow!" Jackie didn't finish the sentence as Uncle, almost as he had appeared out of nowhere; hit him in the forehead with both index and middle fingers. To be fair, Jackie thought that by this moment he should had grown accustomed to it, since Uncle had done it since Jackie was a child, but the elder always took the archeologist by surprise.

"Nephew is always veeeery loud!" Uncle yelled, apparently not paying attention to the fact that he was being even louder than his nephew. "And one more thing! Nephew is almost late!"

"I know, Uncle, I'm sorry." Jackie apologized. "But I was…"

"One more thing!" Uncle interrupted him, and took his wallets. "Nephew has suit prepared upwards, Uncle choose it for him! He should be preparing noooow!"

Tohru appeared then, and took Jackie's wallets from the old Chinese man. "Hello Jackie. How was Brazil?"

Jackie smiled at the Japanese giant's greeting. "Mostly well, except I didn't get to meet the man I went there for meeting."

"Oh," Tohru said. "And you can't meet him another time?"

"Actually yes, he will come to San Francisco by himself, so we can- ow! Uncle!" Jackie complained after his second slap of the day.

"Wasn't nephew listening? He needs to go and chaaange!" Uncle said.

"Sensei, we have plenty of time." Tohru said, trying to calm his mentor. "The graduation won't start until four hours from now."

"Tohru doesn't know how slow Jackie is to put on formal attire!" Uncle said. "He just can't get how to put a tie around his neck."

"Uncle, that was years ago." Jackie complained, now slightly annoyed. He remembered that day, when he had to put into one of those uncomfortable suits and go to one of those auctions where Uncle got the majority of his antiques. "I was just a kid, and…" seeing the old man's stare, Jackie sighed and started to go up the stairs. "I will go changing. You can let the luggage where you can, Tohru; I will put it in order when we are back." Jackie said to the mountain of a man, who did as asked and then retired to his own room. Being the size he was, Tohru really was the one who needed time to prepare.

"Nephew, one more thing." Uncle stopped Jackie from climbing the stairs.

"Yes?" Jackie asked. Uncle climbed a pair of stairs and put his wrinkled, old hands over Jackie's shoulders.

"Today is a very important day for niece." Uncle said to Jackie. "And you are very important for her, she really looks up to you. You are a second father for her. So now, go and put in pretty suit, and if Uncle sees that his claps are louder than yours in ceremony, nephew will have to search for another place to live."

"Thank you, Uncle." Jackie answered and he went to his room. There, over his bed, was a black tuxedo waiting for him. Not overly refined, but not ordinary. Jackie supposed that Uncle could have good taste in things that weren't antiques or teas with strange flavors; even if it were tuxedos. He looked at the clothing and the accessories that accompanied it. He smiled at the fact that the worst thing that had happened to him lately was struggling with a tie. Of course, that wouldn't last long.

* * *

Far away from Uncle's Rare Finds, into a lonely office block in the middle of San Francisco; a middle aged man by the name of Preston Fisher was passing a lot of financial movements from one book to another. A man with a thin body and fingers that some deemed too large for a man his height; with curly hair of a bronzed tone of red and a skin of a milky white. He had been always a skinny guy, one of those kids that were called 'scarecrow' by the other children in the school's playground.

Preston was what the boss of every company would call a model employee. He never disturbed anyone, never talked out of turn, he did his job efficiently and, most important of all, he never asked for a raise. Politeness incarnate, at least for the big shots. For the other workers, or even the people of the street, Preston was a weird man. He would just do his job silently, sat down in his corner without talking; only the fast drumming of the pen against paper could be heard from there. It didn't matter if he was invited to a party, or if someone showed the slightest of interests on him; he would always decline it with a polite yet cold smile and answer.

But today was, for some reason, a different case. The pen didn't move as fast as it usually did, and sometimes it would escape the middle aged man's hand and fell to the ground. Sweating and feeling as if a truck had run over his whole body, his head was spinning.

 _Am I sick?_ , Preston thought, his head hurting badly, impending his concentration. _I can't work like this... better go home._

Preston closed both books and walked to the boss' office. Knocking the door and entering after a dry 'enter' came from the other side of the door. Preston explained to his boss, a woman in her forties with a mane of dark brown hair tied into a topknot and that looked at him with light brown eyes behind a pair of little glasses that rested upon her round nose. She gave Preston permission to go home (hey, it was his first complain in ten years, it had to be true) and then dismissed him. Preston exited her office, picked up his things and his jacket and took the usual way back home, not paying attention to the looks of surprise in his coworkers' faces upon witnessing the first time that Preston had left the place before everyone else.

Walking through the streets of San Francisco, each step a little closer from his glorious bed, Preston looked to the skies, where black clouds seemed to be gathering over his neighborhood. _A storm?_ , he thought. _Weird... there was no report of storm for today._

Preston fastened his walk a little. He didn't want to get caught into rain on top of being sick for whatever reason. In the distance, a thunder could be heard cracking the skies.

* * *

 ** _Section 13. Three hours and a half later_**

It was the first time that Jackie Chan had seen a large room of Section 13 so full of people without being under attack, or having an emergency meeting. The auditory, a new room added when the new base of Section 13 had been built after the Ice Gang had done a literal stampede in the old base, crumbling it into pieces of stone. But now, four years later, here it was anew, large enough to remind Jackie of one of those enormous ballrooms he had seen in movies, full of multiple people just chatting, drinking from tiny glasses and laughing. They were all agents, or maybe workers, some of those scientists he had seen sporadically when had lived here; Jackie thought. Among them there were younger ones, few in comparison, but yet remarkable. Those were the ones that got graduated with Jade; they weren't but teenagers in the verge of adulthood. Something inside Jackie told him that there was something wrong with having those kids (there was no better word to describe them) becoming agents of something like an organization as Section 13, but… he was no one to protest, he supposed. Jackie moved slightly under the fabric that was nagging against his skin.

Even at his age, Jackie Chan felt incredibly uncomfortable inside the suit. He never had been a huge fan of this kind of clothing, and every time he put on one he felt strange, itchy and scratchy. Maybe it was his inner martial artist, telling him that it wasn't the adequate type of indumenta for a body like his; that tuxedos were meant for tranquil men with bodies that moved in slow motion; not for trained ones, accustomed to energetic movement. Jackie chuckled a little; he couldn't imagine himself fighting in a tux, or in any other type of suit. He would be so ridiculous!

Speaking of people in formal clothing, he looked at the one chosen by Uncle and Tohru. The Japanese giant was wearing a normal looking suit (of Italian cut, if Jackie's eyes didn't fail him) that hugged quite well to his body, making him look elegant and refined even with his size. Jackie had to admit, Tohru had quite an intimidating aura wearing that kind of clothing. Maybe he wore those when he was part of the Dark Hand, and Velmont dragged him everywhere as his personal bodyguard? Probably.

As for Uncle… well, Uncle was wearing a dark green Nehru, or mandarin suit. "Uhum, nice work with the rebuilding… Uncle should ask Captain Black for the people who did this for shop's expansion." the Chinese elder whispered to himself as he admired the fine work around him, mostly due to how fast it had been done.

"One of the privileges of working under the government, gentlemen" a voice interrupted the trio. Captain Augustus Black had entered the scene, wearing his usual long, black coat and the dark brown pullover and grey pants under it. He offered a hand in salute. "How has life been treating you all?"

"Captain Black!" Jackie said, shaking the man's hand almost in instinct. Then he looked at him, up and down, slowly and carefully. "Why are _you_ not wearing a suit?"

Black smirked. "Jackie, I _am_ the Captain. Even if I would like to, I had a lot of things to do that, sadly, mean that I can't be here."

"Shouldn't you be making a speech, or something?" Jackie asked, a bit saddened after the fact that Black wouldn't be attending. "For Jade and the other graduates, I mean."

"No, I'm sorry about that." Black apologized. "But don't worry; Joseph will be giving a speech, and knowing him, I suppose it will be magnificent."

"Who is Joseph?" Tohru asked, but Black just shook his head, as if explaining that there was a lot to be told, and no time for it.

"I will see you all later, but I think you should prepare, Jackie." Black said as he left the trio at their own business and disappeared behind a bunch of people.

"Wait, what did he mean with _that_?" Jackie asked upon his old friend's strange behavior, but when he looked at Tohru and Uncle, they were a few meters away from him. "Uncle?"

"Remember Jackie, the body must move as bamboo, strong yet flexible!" Uncle said to him.

"Why is everyone talking like…?" Jackie asked, but then a black blur appeared in front of him faster than he could react, trapping him into a rather oppressive hug.

After the hug ended, and looking at the person that had almost assaulted him, Jackie saw the form of his niece Jade, standing there with a wide, happy grin in the face. Clad in a suit of a dark blue, Jackie looked at Jade with a warm smile. He noted that she had grown even taller these last months since they celebrated her birthday, being now only half a head or so smaller than him. Four years and a trip into adolescence really had paid off, putting an almost grown up Jade of sixteen where, not so long ago, there was only one little girl of twelve. Of course, her nature had remained mostly the same; she still liked those Ultra-Moose toys, and she still was eager to go into the first adventure that appeared right behind the corner. Even after four years, she was still the same energetic and curious Jade.

"Hi Jackie." Jade said in her usual carefree tone; as she looked her uncle from head to toes. "You look like a penguin."

"Hi Jade." Jackie said to his niece, passing over her joke.

The two of them produced something between a giggle and a laugh; and when it was clear that the moment of the reunion between the two had ended, Uncle and Tohru approached the pair and hugged Jade with the same enthusiasm that she had done with Jackie.

"You have a lot to tell me!" she said to them. "Like, what have you been doing these last months? Have you been somewhere interesting? Tohru, have you practiced new spells, or..."

"Jade! Where were you?" a blond girl with a complexion similar to Jade's, with short hair that fell only to the middle of her neck in curls and bright green eyes, and dressed into an skirt suit of a light brown approached the group and held the girl by her wrist, interrupting her. "C'mon, we have to hurry, it's going to start!"

"Oh, right! Thanks Stephanie!" Jade said. "Sorry, Jackie, see you later!"

"Was that your family?" Stephanie asked Jade as she practically dragged her towards the first lines of the swarm composed of people. "Was that, you know, _the_ Jackie Chan?"

"Well, duh." Jade replied. "Who did you think he was?"

Stephanie looked back, and, making sure than none other than Jade could hear her, she asked "Do you think that you could get me his... er... autograph? You know, later."

Jade looked at her friend with a raised eyebrow. "Sure..." she said, not very convinced.

"Awesome!" the blonde answered. "You know, I think I have never really thought about how lucky I was to make friends with you in the academy."

"Of course you were lucky. I mean, I'm me." Jade replied. "If it wasn't for me you couldn't have passed that one obstacle race."

Stephanie pouted. "You couldn't have passed _that_ hacking test without _me_. And you could use some of my advice in fashion. You look like a guy with that look."

Jade smiled threateningly at Stephanie. "Listen to me carefully here, Steph. I'll die before wearing a freaking skirt."

Steph rolled her eyes. "Never say 'never'."

"I didn't." Jade said, snickering.

And like that, the two girls went to meet the other soon-to-be agents, and little by little all of them took seat in the first lines of a bunch of metallic chairs that were waiting for the attendants in front of a lectern. They shouldn't be much more than thirty, the new and fresh generation of Section 13; ready to throw themselves into the world in order to save it. Minutes passed and Jackie, Uncle and Tohru took their own seats.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Tohru, sir; we should have thought about your... body shape." a little employee apologized for the chairs standard size, but Tohru waved his hand, letting the man know that it wasn't of importance. The employee sighed in relief while Tohru sat in his chair, its legs bending a little under the Japanese giant's weight. After all the people had sat in one of the chairs a man separated himself from the crown and took place behind the lectern.

Now, Jackie had seen very weird-looking men in his life, and that was just counting the human ones, Daolon Wong usually standing at the top of the list. But this one, this man that was now standing before them had taken the first place from the elderly dark chi wizard almost automatically. Standing merely one meter and fifty centimeters from the ground, the most prominent characteristic of the man was that he was fat. Now, not in the same way that Tohru was, with powerful muscles bulging from his body; but neither in a gross manner. The fat of this man seemed… elegant, for some reason, with the round and big belly and inflated arms and legs somehow giving him a tranquilizing guise. Dressed in sharp suit of a light grey color that contrasted strangely well with the dark _grey_ tone of his skin; the man had only his left arm, the right one gone. His face was contracted into a playful grin, like the one of children when they are about to open their Christmas presents. Jackie noted that the man had rather animalistic features in his face, small eyes under two thick rectangular glasses and a big mouth and big cheeks that made him look like some kind of amphibian. Black, messy and probably greasy hair adorned his head, combed back in a classy hairstyle. He put some papers over the lectern while some assistant put a little table full of what looked like police badges at his side. His right eye looked at the paper while the left one looked over the crowd, and when he raised his head to direct himself to the expecting faces of the people gathered there, the left eye was the one to look at them, while the right one was now looking at the ceiling.

"Gentlemen, ladies, and most important of all, graduates" the man spoke. His voice was surprisingly deep. For some reason, Jackie had expected his void to be high-pitched. "As many of you know, I'm Director Joseph White, in charge of Section 13's public, interstate and international relations; administrator of its founds and resources, and head of the psychological branch of the organization." the man smirked, and not only Jackie, but also Uncle and Tohru could have sworn that he had quite the set of strange teeth in the mouth. "Or in other words, I'm the man who, since three and a half years ago, signs the papers so you all can fly in expensive planes; and also makes sure than none of you go insane." A bunch of laughs could be heard across the auditory, mainly from the graduates. The man, Joseph White, continued. "Normally, our dear Captain Augustus Black would be giving this speech and presiding over this ceremony, but he has been taken away by the forces of bureaucracy, so I will have to give it in his place. Now, without more delay, I will like to thank all the presents for attending; and I would like for the graduates to come here and take their badge, license and to receive their well earned cheer when I call them by name. Now, let's see…"

One by one, exactly thirty three teens passed and received what Director White had promised them; the last one being Jade, who looked in awe at the object she had been given, a triangular shaped badge of a platinum tone with the number 13 engraved in it. Of course, this thing was almost never carried by any agent, and it fulfilled more a symbolic duty than anything else, an object to keep in our room and remind you that you were once a young man or woman with dreams and aspirations of justice, or adventure, or just intense emotions. But to Jade Chan, this was the most precious gift she had received in her whole life. She looked at it first, then to the crowd, and when the clapping and the cheering exploded from them, she searched for Jackie with her sight. Her eyes, met and the archeologist couldn't feel more proud about his niece than now. Both of them smiled to each other. This was for both uncle and niece, what you would call a Good Day.

It was going to change very soon.

* * *

Far away from Section 13, in a lone apartment occupied only by one renter, it was the worst of days for Preston Fisher. Even since he had returned home, he had tried everything he could think about in order to get rid of the headache, to no avail. It didn't matter how many pills he took, how much he tried to rest, the pain continued there. After two hours, the pain had ended from focusing in the head and had changed to torture his whole body. It was indescribable; he was feeling almost as his entrails were burning angrily, as if his blood was boiling inside his veins.

After that... things started to get weird. Preston had tried to watch the TV in order to distract himself from the pain until the ton of painkillers he had taken started (he hoped) to make effect. But when he turned the TV on, the only tjing that the device answered him were interferences, dancing and buzzing in the screen, as if they were a thousand flies behind the crystal. So Preston turned the TV off.

 _Did I forget to pay this month?,_ Preston thought. _Ugh... I will think of it tomorrow... I need to call a doctor..._

Preston walked slowly towards the telephone, but when he tried to pick it up, an electric current ran through his body and compressed in his hand, shooting a lightning from it that scorched the phone down to ashes. Preston's body started to tremble, and he fell to the ground, as if he was suffering from an epileptic attack. His body started to be enveloped by lightning that shot from every pore of his skin, striking the walls and ceiling of the apartment. Every electrical appliance of the flat either started to turn on and off randomly or directly exploded with its circuits burned. And logically, Preston's brain took the most logical course of action, and he fainted.

Outside the apartment, black clouds twirled over the building that housed Preston's flat. For people that were away, it was such a weird show, seeing that the black clouds of the storm only condensed over that spot. A thunder cracked the silent skies once again and lightning ran free across the black clouds. And yet there was no rain, only thunder and lightning.

* * *

 ** _Back at Section 13_**

"Thank you very much, Mr. Chan!" Stephanie thanked Jackie as he, rather clumsily, had given her his autograph when Jade had asked her if he could. Of course, Jackie felt obliged and he did so, earning himself a smile from the blond teenager. "I'll treasure it!" Steph said as she left the Chan clan alone, probably in order to put the autograph into a safe place.

"Your friend seems nice." Tohru commented to Jade, as the girl stood there, watching Stephanie go.

"Steph? Steph is a dork." Jade said to the Japanese giant. "She is a nice, girly dork; but a dork. She has her whole room filled with cables, and computers, and stuff…" noting Tohru's smiling face over her, Jade dropped the little façade. "But yeah, she is a good friend."

"Niece should treasure Goldie-girl." Uncle said. "Is very, veeeery hard to find good friends in this world!"

"Why did she want my autograph?" Jackie asked then.

"Huh? You don't know, Jackie? You're famous here." Jade answered, delighting herself in the strange expression that her uncle was making over her answer. "I mean, you were the first one to fight demons, and shadow ninjas, and all that. I and the others wouldn't be here if not for you."

"Indeed, you are quite popular with the newcomers, Mr. Chan." a deep voice entered the conversation. Director White had approached the group making himself no to be noted until he was there. He held out his only hand. "And also some that aren't very new. Director Joseph White; at your entire service."

Jackie took the man's hand; pressing it he noted that his skin was incredibly rough at contact. "The same for you, Mr. White. I think I have never heard from a 'Director' of Section 13 before."

White smiled. "I only got here after you all dealt with that… ah… what was his name again, Miss Chan?"

"Drago." Jade answered. "His name was Drago."

"That one." White said. "During these four years there has been a lot of… movement inside the chain of command." the Director told them all.

"How come?" Tohru asked to the weird looking little man.

"Tohru, right?" White asked as he extended his hand towards him and the Japanese chi wizard took it in respect. "Well, you could say that it all started when Augustus tried to tell his direct superiors at the time that magic, and demons were real. Of course they didn't believe him, and took down all his petitions."

"What happened then?" Jackie asked the man.

"Isn't it obvious?" White said as a grin appeared in his face. "A whole army of shadow demons almost took over the world! So the previous bosses got fired, and they put me in 'charge'. Of course, Augustus still has complete control over the operations; I only dealt with bureaucrats and some other things that are rather important. Speaking of which, since this is such a good opportunity, having you all here, I mean; I would want to talk with you all, in private, if possible."

Jackie looked to Uncle, who had remained silent since White had appeared and started to talk. The Chinese elder's eyes shifted a couple of times between his nephew and the strange-looking man in front of him. He then extended his hand towards White, and Jackie, Jade and Tohru saw a glimpse of green light covering it. "I'm Uncle. Pleased to meet you, Director White."

Tohru looked surprised at how seriously his mentor had extended his arm, while Jackie had been more surprise by the totally defensive position his uncle was in. White took the man's hand with his and shook it without any problem. "The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Chan. Miss Chan here is one of our most prominent promises as an agent. Now, about that chat in private…"

"Of course," Uncle said politely as he separated his hand from White's. "My family will be glad to attend." No willies; and White hadn't been burned by the good chi magic he had put in the handshake. But his appearance, why no one else seemed troubled by his appearance? And the sensation he irradiated… there was something wrong with that man.

White smiled again, once more sporting that weird grin that stood between creepy and funny. "Good. Now, if you all could follow me…"

* * *

"Jade, do you know something about this man?" Jackie asked his niece as the four members of the Chan clan waited outside his office. Tohru was leaning against the wall, while Jade and Jackie were standing nearby. Uncle, for his part, was staring warily at White's office's door, as if expecting (or trying to sense) something evil from it.

"Well, I know he is my boss, Jackie." Jade said, arms crossed over her chest and a little offended by the earlier display of the Chan patriarch. "And he is a good guy, really. He even gives psychological advice to the agents in training, he gave it to me."

"He did?" Jackie asked.

"Yeah!" Jade answered, sounded more offended with each second. "And he was incredibly helpful! And you saw it, Uncle's magic did nothing to him, and bad magic can't touch good magic! I mean, I admit that he looks a little strange, first time I met him I thought that _Ratso_ looked healthier, but you should give him a try instead of just…!"

"Jade, calm down." Tohru said. "I know this is a very important moment for you, but there is no reason to talk like that to Jackie. You know that he only cares about you."

"Tch…" Jade said, looking sideways. "I hate when you have the reason, Big-T."

"Uncle did not feel evil coming from the man. He feels no chi from him." Uncle said then.

"Then why did you do that?" Jade said. "What if he had noticed, what if he had… OW!"

Uncle had hit Jade in the same way that he always hit Jackie or anyone that was bothering him. "Was niece not listening? Uncle felt no chi from that man. _No chi_ means any type of chi; no evil, but no good either. There is something very wrong with White-man… He could be plotting something, preparing a trap behind door, just waiting to open it!"

As in clue to what Uncle had said; White opened the door and let the Chan clan in. Of course, there wasn't a trap, just the man's office. The insides of the Director's office were all painted in a light almond tone, a greenish carpet covering the floor, a desk with a chair behind and four in front presiding the stance. A big mirror stood silently in one of the room's corners, a pattern of undulating lines decorating its black borders. All around, bookshelves full of thick tomes could be seen, and in them, Uncle, Tohru and even Jade could recognize books that spoke about chi magic or mystical creatures of mainly Asia, but also Europe. Uncle could see how some ones were just encyclopedias about legends, demons and the like. Others looked like pure and real spellbooks, both about chi magic and other types of magical arts. Uncle could have sworn that he had seen one of the only five original books that depicted the way of performing a ritual in order to create a chi vessel with an object. Master Fong always regarded them as treasures among treasures; how had this 'man' got his hands over it?

While his two blood-relatives and Tohru looked at the little private library that the Director had assembled, Jackie was looking at the ceiling. A painting had been made over it, occupying its whole surface. It depicted a total of eleven spheres, all of them connected with thick lines that looked like braches; one of the spheres as its center, the 'tree' took its form with nine of the other ten spheres depicted into three groups of three in an ascending manner; with the last sphere as its root.

 _What is that?_ Jackie thought. _I think I have seen something similar to it before, into a temple, somewhere…_

"If you all could come here." Jackie heard White's deep voice. The four approached the man's desk, where he had put a bunch of files over it. "First, I would like to thank you all for your efforts in fighting alongside Section 13 during all these years. Your cooperation with this organization in taking down the Dark Hand and central rol in the fight against the 'forces of evil' has been of the utmost importance, and I thank each one of you." White moved some of the papers over his desk, pulling some photographs at the top of the files. "As you all know, we still had quite the collection in our faithful Vault, which resisted the little catastrophe of four years ago; more or less."

White stopped for a moment, letting the Chans look over the images he had put over the table. _Oh yeah, I remember those ones. Funny times_ , Jade thought as she looked at the two parts that composed the Eye of Aurora, the necklace that could teleport people; and that mirror that held those crazy clowns captive; and also the puppet form of the Monkey King. _But wait, where is..._

"AIYAH!" Uncle screamed. "Where is Déjà Vu stone?! Jackie made great effort into bringing it here! Uncle was very insistent into protecting it from forces of evil! It could be disaster into wrong hands!"

"The Déjà Vu is gone." White explained, as he waved his only, grey hand over his head. "People far higher than me deemed that having something with the ability to time-travel could be... problematic, to say the least."

"So we kind of get rid of it." Captain Black's voice came from the door carrying another set of files under his arm. The bald man approached the desk and put the new files over it.

Uncle's face became of a dark red tone, and he burst in anger. "GET RID OF IT?!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "HOW?! WHERE?! Déjà Vu stone is...!"

"Mister Uncle." White interrupted him, his deep voice somehow calming the old man enough to stop yelling and focus in the conversation. "The stone was put into a strongbox and thrown into the Mariana Trench. I doubt that someone can go that deep and survive."

Uncle narrowed his eyes at the strange looking man. It weren't just the looks, or the sensation of not having chi at all..., it was something else. Uncle had met a lot of evil men during his life, but this man felt just _wrong_. Exactly like the feeling from the previous night. So for now, Uncle folded his arms and kept silence; as if telling White that he understood. He would do research later.

"Ah, Augustus; did our friend of France agree to our little idea?" White asked Captain Black.

The bald man nodded. "Yes, in fact he was quite eager to agree upon that matter." Captain Black said, making White to smile happily.

"Excuse me," Tohru asked the pair in a polite tone. "But you said that there was something important you would like to discuss with us."

White smiled. "Ah, yes, yes. The matter of most importance is... this." White pulled another photo from the pile of files to the top. There it was, in al its glory, feline features and red skin; the only Oni Mask that remained.

"Tarakudo..." Tohru muttered; his body shivering a little upon watching the guise of the sealed lord of the Oni. It weren't willies per se, but the last time they had faced Tarakudo... it hadn't been a pleasant experience, to say the least.

"What has Big Red to do with all this?" Jade asked. "We dealt with him, he is sealed in that mask, and there is no way for him to escape."

"That's not the point, Jade." Black said. "How to explain it..."

"Mr. Tohru." White spoke. "Tell me; is a Shadowkhan alive as you and I are? Can they die?"

Tohru raised an eyebrow in curiosity since all the attendants, except for maybe Director White, knew what a Shadowkhan was. But as he had been asked, he explained. "Shadowkhan are neither alive nor dead, they are just puppets created from shadows and given form by the dark chi from the Shadow Realm that the ones that conjure them draw from there."

White smiled upon the Japanese chi wizard's explanation. "Do they need to drink, eat or sleep?"

Tohru shook his head. "No. For all purposes, they don't need any of that."

The Director's smile widened. "And they obey everything that the one that calls them says?"

"Well, yes; that's their role." Tohru answered.

White clacked a quite disturbing, sort and dry laugh. "Well, Mr. Tohru. You have just described the dream army of every nation in human history!"

"What do you mean with that?" Jackie asked, his eyes widening in surprise.

"Jackie, we are a secret agency; but an American secret agency. And now not even very secret." Black stepped into the conversation. "After all that happened with the Oni and Drago, but especially with the Oni; other countries pressed ours in order to know what was going on with the enormous mass of blackness that covered their territory and that originated from ours." Black put a finger over one of the files over White's desk. "The European Union, China, Russia, and especially Japan... They were all kind of troubled that we have this kind of power at our disposal. They are worried that someday, some madman will see this mask and get... _ideas_."

The Director reclined himself in his chair. "During these past two years, we have been taking measures to open Section 13 to the world." White explained. "We have been building a complex in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in cooperation with other nations, and they have started to establish their own versions of Section 13 in order to create a worldwide defense against magical threats."

 _So, Section 13 International?_ , Jade thought. _Great, we are going full Justice League._

"And that's where you four, and our friend here" White continued speaking, tapping the mask's image; "enter."

Black took the image of Tarakudo in his hands. "We will like for you to come with me and transfer the mask there."

Jackie sighed in relief at the prospect of something so easy. "So we just have to go and deliver the mask, right?" Black and White exchanged glances.

"Actually, Jackie." Black said, trying to sound the softest and most diplomatic possible. "We would like to only Jade and Tohru to accompany me."

Jackie's eyes moved from Black to White, and then to Black again. After repeating the movement a couple times, his eyes focused solely in Black. "What?"

"First mission?" Jade asked, smiling in awe. She threw her arms above her head. "First mission!" Jade then noticed Tohru's eyes over her. "Hehe... Sorry."

"Captain Black..." Jackie said into a tone that sounded quite worried. "Why only Jade and Tohru?"

"Jackie..." Black began, but Uncle interrupted him with his own words.

"Uncle believes it's a good idea." the Chinese elder said in a serious tone. "Tohru is better than Uncle in Japanese chi magic."

"Uncle, you can't…" Jackie said, only to get another slap from the elder.

"Didn't you hear Uncle?" the Chinese old man replied. "Tohru is better to dealt with mask than me! Nephew never listens!" Uncle said in anger. _And that way, I will have time for research_ , he added in his thoughts.

"I'm not worried about Tohru, I…" Jackie started to say, even if he noticed Jade frowning at his side.

"Mr. Chan." White interrupted him. "Could I speak with you in private, just a few minutes?"

Jackie looked at the strange-looking man and then at the attendants. Tohru seemed to agree with the idea, and Uncle had said what he wanted to; so he accepted, and Black accompanied the others outside. When they were finally alone, White reclined even more in his seat and let out a large and sonorous sigh. He took his glasses of and rubbed his eyes with his only hand. After several moments of silence and putting his glasses back on, White spoke. "Mr. Chan. Do you know that, if she wanted to, your niece could defeat you in combat now?"

Jackie stared at White with a blank expression. "What? That must be…"

"It's not an exaggeration." White stated. "During the last four years she has been here, polishing her abilities to their peek. And albeit her physical might and cunning are vastly superior to her other competences, she is now at the level of agents that had years of experience at their backs. Of course, she is still rather reckless and impulsive, and maybe a little too proud of her own abilities sometimes, a facet of her personality that maybe has worsened; but I must admit that I haven't seen someone so capable in a long time."

"This was your idea, wasn't it?" Jackie asked the Director, now catching up to the man's reasoning, and not with a slight hint of mistrust.

"Mostly," White answered. "Mr. Chan; I know that you are worried about your niece's safety, everyone in your situation would be. In fact, that's how you are supposed to react. But aside being in charge of this organization and being a politician; I'm also a psychologist." White explained. "And over the last months I have noted that Jade doesn't want to prove her abilities only to her own self, but also to you. I think that the best course of action would be to let her have this… victory, to call it something. Let her prove you that she can manage in her own. Otherwise, in a worst case scenario, someone of her talent could develop an inferiority-superiority complex to contend with not being able to hold up to you."

Jackie pondered the man's words after he had listened to them, letting them to sink in his mind. "You really care for Jade to tell me that."

"Mr. Chan, your niece; like every teenager in the world; wants to be heard and seen as an equal, as a person of her own." White explained. "Denying that, even if fundamental in the desire of wanting to protect her, could be catastrophic." The strange-looking man smiled. "And don't get me wrong just because I look weird; I care for every person in this base. That's my job, after all."

Jackie smiled shyly after that sentence. "I'm sorry; it's not that I wanted to offend you, but my Uncle is ratter… suspicious of new people."

"Mr. Chan." White explained. "I doubt that by this point in my life anyone could say something about my appearance that offends me. And don't worry about me; I'm just a friendly man of Massachusetts, there is nothing to worry about." White smiled from ear to ear. "And believe me, there is no one in this base that cares about your niece's safety more than me."

Jackie gave his thanks to the man of dark grey skin and then directed himself to the door. Before leaving, he gave one final look to the ceiling and suddenly, the name he had almost forgotten came to his mind. "By the way I didn't know you were a follower of the Kabbalah."

White looked at him with an eyebrow raised in confusion. "Follower of _what_?"

Jackie pointed to the ceiling. "The ten Sephirot." Jackie said. "It's a symbol of the Kabbalah."

The Director looked at the image of the ceiling and then to Jackie, then to the image again and one final time to Jackie, almost if the archeologist had said one of the biggest insults in the world to his face. A varied range of emotions passed over his face, from disbelief at what Jackie had said, then to anger about it, then pure hate at Jackie for having said it without consideration and finally, pity for Jackie due to not being able to understand what he was seeing. Then his expression relaxed and White smiled once again.

"Is something wrong?" Jackie asked, a little worried by the man's reaction.

"No, no; of course not, Mr. Chan. Is just that I'm not very accustomed to people recognizing it."

And with that final exchange of words as a farewell; Jackie left the newly Section 13's Director's office. White looked at the ceiling after Jackie left and let out a weird chuckle out his mouth.

 _Kabbalah, eh?,_ White thought. _Well, I suppose that one could have taken inspiration from you, but to be mistaken… But, I suppose it's not his fault. He can't see the rest of spheres. For now._

* * *

Jackie found Jade half an hour later into one of those training rooms that had served him very well during his time living in Section 13. She had left the jacket and the tie of her suit, now wearing only the shirt of her suit and a pair of dark blue pants. She was practicing some movements, concentrating and delivering blows; punches and kicks into the air.

She really has become way better, Jackie thought, looking how Jade's movements were now swift and precise. No energy was lost in the blows, no muscle was used at random. From his niece's little show, Jackie could see that Jade had added new styles and types of martial arts to her own.

Four years.

"Where are Tohru and Uncle?" Jade asked; having noticed Jackie's presence.

"Waiting with Captain Black." Jackie answered. "Some of those movements are new, aren't they? I don't remember teaching them to you."

"Uncle Jackie." Uncle. She had called him uncle; it was clear she was upset. "You haven't the only one teaching me during this time."

Four years, even with the visits. Four years were a long time, especially for a teen. Jackie sighed. "Jade, listen..."

"No, you listen." Jade retorted, stopping her exercises. "This is like, the best day of my life, and I really wanted to have you here, I'm glad that you are here. But what happens? Uncle almost chi-spells the Director, and then you said that..." she sighed. "Jackie, you have to understand that I'm not the same little girl that arrived at Uncle's shop."

"Jade, I know that." He was the one to sigh now. "I talked with Director White." Jackie said. "And I agreed with you accompanying Tohru in that mission. Alone."

Jade was left speechless, and for a moment she just looked at Jackie; feeling how her frown disappeared little by little, leaving a small smile in its place. "Really?"

"Really." Jackie said, smiling in an awkward manner. "Jade, it's not that you aren't ready or strong enough. It's just that I'm worried about you."

"You shouldn't."

"But I am." Jackie answered. "I always will be."

The two of them fell silent and then, without any type of prior warning, Jade hugged Jackie. "Thanks, Jackie." Jade said. "And I promise; I won't break anything, create any international crisis and I will protect Tohru."

Jackie raised an eyebrow. " _You_ will protect _Tohru_?"

"Well, duh. It's the ocean, Jackie." Jade said.

"Oh right," Jackie said holding back a laugh. "The fishes."

"But seriously now." Jade said. "Thanks for giving me this, Jackie. I promise I won't disappoint you."

Jackie put a hand over Jade shoulder. "Jade, you could never disappoint me. Even if you will always be that little girl wearing a hoodie that I met at Uncle's shop. By the way, some of those movements look really good, and I think that we still have time before we have to go." Jackie said them taking his jacket off and taking into a fighting position in order to spar. "Why don't you show me what others have been teaching you?"

Jade smirked, and in a matter of seconds the two of them were exchanging blows into a friendly manner. Sometimes, speaking with the body is better than speaking with the mouth; and this was clearly one of those situations. Jade delivered an ascending kick to Jackie's head, but her uncle caught her leg in mid air and turning around she literally threw her in the air. Jade gave a somersault while falling and landed over her feet in the floor. She then launched an attack towards Jackie composed of rapid punches, some of them fast enough to force Jackie to put a great effort in order to stop them. And there it was, clear as crystal, the fact that Jade was as capable as him, but that she would never be like him. Even if Jackie had been able to really nail on her that 'The best battle is the one that is not fought'; it was clear that Jade preferred being in the frontlines, attacking. Here he was, in the defense, avoiding, blocking, redirecting; and there was she, attacking as there was no tomorrow. Reckless and as energetic as an atomic bomb; but still his little niece Jade.

* * *

 _ **Time after the spar**_

"Why do niece and nephew stink so much?!" Uncle asked in a screech while the four of them were driven back home into one of Section 13's official vehicles; a SUV, to be exact. After all, it was one of the few vehicles that could afford Tohru's weight and size without losing its shock absorvers while driving.

"We don't stink!" Jade protested. "It's just that we couldn't use the showers after our spar."

"You two sparred?" Tohru asked with a bit of surprise.

"Yes." Jackie answered. "Nothing serious, just a little excercise to seeif we both were still in shape." After a few seconds, he added, "Jade won."

"You did?" Tohru asked, now pride over his young friend achievement taking over surprise in his voice.

"You bet I did!" Jade said almost in a shout. "It was awesome! Jackie tried to get me in a wrench but then I flipped and I got him in my own! I mean, it was hard as hell to get him, but I did it!"

Jackie had taken White's words at heart. If what Jade needed was being recognized as an equal, why not do it into all levels? Jackie had to admit, fighting in a serious tone with his niece had been kind of entertaining. It hadn't been one of those 'fights to the death' that he had with Hak Foo or with a member of the Ice Strike Gang; it had been just a serious spar with Jade. They weren't trying to broke each other's bones, or cripple each other's body; they were just fighting, trying to see to what extent the other was capable of going, see how the other had developed. And Jade had won. Jackie now felt a new kind of pride, the pride of being surpassed by someone he cared about.

"And the best thing is that Jackie gave me permission to go with Tohru to that mission!" Jade continued. "Isn't it great, big guy?"

Tohru smiled warmly. "It is." then he shifted his glance to his elderly mentor. "But sensei, why did you agree with Director White's proposal? You said that you find him suspicious."

"Aiyah... Uncle finds White-man really suspicious, Tohru. But Captain Black is going to accompany you, and Uncle trusts Captain Black. He has very good chi in him!"

"Speaking of chi, sensei..." Tohru said, "you said that you felt no chi from that man."

"Here we go again..." Jade complained. "Just when I was in a good mood."

"Uncle doesn't feel chi from White-man." Uncle said in a somber tone. "Even niece has to admit, that is suspicious."

Jade mumbled something between her teeth, but didn't say a thing. Okay, that was a little suspicious... okay, it was pretty suspicious. But if Director White was evil, the why was he directing Section 13? Why was he so helping and caring, and nice to her and the rest of the cadets? For Jade, it didn't make sense. True, she had been once fooled by Hsi Wu, and from that moment she had been very wary about falling for the _'bad guy acts like a good guy act_ '; but White seemed truly dedicated in body and soul to help people and improve humanity's defenses against evil! For God's sake, he even called his mother every Monday!

Meanwhile, Tohru was the one to point the obvious. "But sensei, all living beings have chi, either good or bad. Even beings like the Jiang-Shi have it, even if they need to consume the one from others to strengthen the little one they have. If Director White doesn't have chi, then it means that he is not alive, which he is. Maybe you committed a failure...ow!"

"Former apprentice has grown very adept in the use of chi magic, and Uncle thanks him for reminding him of one of the basics." Uncle said as he hit Tohru. "But that's the reason why Uncle must do research!"

Jackie glanced outside the window of the SUV. Just like when he had looked out of the taxi, people were walking San Francisco's streets, minding their own business, except for the ones looking surprised at seeing a SUV through the highway. Jackie's mind shifted back to the conversation he had had with White. The man didn't seem mischievous, and Captain Black trusted him; but the way he had looked at Jackie when he had talked about the painting in the ceiling...

Jackie's thoughts were interrupted when the driver took a turn and Uncle's shop appeared in sight.

Looking at the shop, Jackie spotted a man that he suposed was in his forties or so, who was inspecting the outsides of the shop, as if expecting for someone to arrive or something to happen.

"Uncle, were you expecting a client today?" Jackie asked the chinese elder.

"What do you mean? Uncle was very insistent in making clear that shop was closed today! He even put a 'closed' sing in the door, so is impossible for..." Uncle suddenly stopped his rant and the others saw how his skin lost a little of colour. Then a shiver ran up his spine and through his whole body.

"Sensei?" Tohru asked with concern

Uncle looked to not point in particular. "Uncle has the willies..."

Looking outside the car, Jackie saw how the man raised one of his arms and pointed his palm towards the SUV, sparks generating in his palm. Jackie had seen enough magic these last years to not recognize it at sight. The last thing he remembered saying was "Take cover!" to his family before the SUV was hit by a lightning bolt and sent crashing backwards into the streets he fell unconscious due to the impact.

* * *

 ** _An hour before that…_**

Preston Fisher awoke from his previous fainting with a little headache, a feeling of hotness over his whole body and, above all else, a sensation of thirst. Without paying attention to the little havoc he had caused in his apartment before falling to the hands of the sleep without dreams, Preston went to his kitchen, drank everything that could refresh his throat and then headed to his shower. There he washed his body carefully, almost as if he was inspecting it like a stranger could do.

Then he went out of the shower and dried himself using everything at his disposal, from towels to the shower's curtains. Then he went to his room, and with clumsy movements he dressed up in a pair of old jeans, a reddish T-shirt and a pair of old boots. Then he headed or the entrance and looked himself in a small mirror that hanged in the hall of the flat.

"How did Shendu tolerate this for such a long time," Tchang Zu spoke through Preston's mouth "is something I will never know." He looked at his new face with clear distaste. "No scales, no fangs; only this clumsy and weak flesh!" The Thunder Demon, now inside a human body, clenched his fist and roared as loud as his new vocal cords permitted, throwing a pair of small lightning bolts out of his fists that collided with the ceiling, leaving two scorching marks over it.

"But I was right choosing this man as a vessel, his will is so pathetic and his chi so malnourished that I have taken control completely over him." Tchang Zu toppled Preston's apartment's door in one kick, sending it out of its frames and exiting to the hall. "And my own chi seems to have increased his physical abilities. Good!" Tchang Zu walked the hall and started to walk down the stairs. "And I won't make the same mistakes that Shendu made. I will destroy the only ones that can vanquish me! Jackie Chan, your days are numbered!"

"Hey! I don't know who the hell is out there!" came then a voice from one of the other flats of the apartment building. "But shut the hell up! I'm trying to sleep! Some of us work at night, you inconsiderate bastard!"

Tchang Zu grumbled but didn't pay any more attention to the human. He then headed out of the apartment and inhaled the air around him strongly. "Ha! Even at such a distance I can smell the reek of good chi that comes from that old fool's lair, just like Hsi Wu told me! Now, it is time to destroy the enemy of all demon-kind once and for all!"

And as soon as those words left his mouth, Tchang Zu started to search for Uncle's shop, ignoring the stares that the people of the streets were giving him. After all, not every day you see a man speaking alone in the middle of the street about chi and demon-kind.

* * *

 ** _The present_**

"-Chan! Wake up, sir! Mr. Chan!" a voice startled Jackie and was able to pull him back from his forced slumber. Jackie then was faced with a bulky man in his fifties, with short brown hair with a few white stripes on it adorning his head. He sported a thick and messy moustache, and his skin had an almond tone to it. Two greenish grey eyes completed a face with a prominent, almost rectangular, jaw. Jackie then realized that he was the driver, and he remembered the stranger in front of the shop, and the lightning.

The Section 13 agent helped him to incorporate. "Are you alright, sir?" he asked, but before Jackie had time to answer, or ask for his family's location; another bolt struck the man in the back, and he was left over Jackie's lap, the archeologist not sure if unconscious or even dead.

The man he had seen at Uncle's shop approached Jackie, his hair of a bronze tone becoming spiky and delivering sparkles of electricity. He looked down at Jackie, and smiled wickedly. Jackie, for his own part, looked at the complete red eyes of the man and how electric bolts ran across his arms and hair. He had seen this same situation before, albeit that time the man had been Valmont, and the element had been fire, whie now it had been lightning. But that only could mean…

"Tchang Zu the Thunder Demon?!" Jackie asked in disbelief.

"Greetings, Jackie Chan." Tchang Zu said, and then pointed one of his hands towards Jackie, condensing quite the amount of lightning in it. "AND FAREWELL!"

"Bad day!" Jackie screamed as he saw the lightning charge at not even a meter of his face. Indeed, it was clearly a Bad Day now.

* * *

 **A/N: I think this is a good moment to end this chapter; since the fight with the possessed by Tchang Zu Preston will be the focus of the start of next chapter and will let the Chan Clan to know that the Demon Sorcerers (except Shendu, of course) are now roaming free in spirit form.**

 **The focus of this chapter was reintroducing Jackie and Jade; and present Director Joseph White, character entrusted with tying the JCA universe to the Cthulhu Mythos. Lovecraft fans should know what the painting in the Director's ceiling is. Also, yes, obvious bad guy is bad; if some doubts are still present.**

 **I think that this story will start as how the JCA show was, with the Chans trying to stop an ancient evil (again) via Chi magic; and then have them descent slowly into the things that the superposing of the realities that happened in the previous chapter has brought to their home. I think that, by chapter four, they will be confronting some of the creatures of the Mythos, and then we will head into an arc that will clearly nail that the Chans are not dealing with simple oriental demons anymore.**

 **Having said that, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter; and to answer the question made by the guest reviewer of January 1, NO, Drago is not dead. Hastur pulled information out of his mind, and the process left him insane and without the chi he had been collecting. It was a side effect of mind-contact with the King in Yellow, but he is still alive, if mad and almost catatonic.**

 **Good bye.**


	3. Sound of Thunder Sound of Changes

**Disclaimer: I don't own Jackie Chan Adventures; JCA and all its characters are the property of Phil Weinstein, Frank Squillace and Jackie Chan himself.**

 **Author Notes: Thank you for the reviews that I got for the previous chapter. I didn't expect for this story to gather attention so quickly, but I'm pretty glad for it. For more notes, see end of the chapter.**

* * *

Jackie Chan Adventures

Out of the Corner of the Eye

Chapter three

Sound of Thunder. Sound of Changes

* * *

 **From the journals of Marcus Malone. Third entry. February of 1946**

You never see it coming, you know? You get distracted and when it hits it's too late. These people, things, I don't know what call them, but... they are just in front of you, and a part of you shrieks that there is something wrong, but you don't see it; or maybe you don't want to see. You get distracted with other, smaller and unimportant things, and they tempt you with promises out of your wildest dreams. Perhaps they know your dreams.

When that man came to us, (to me) with that book, that blasted book... we thought that it was just some madman that had lost himself due to the horrors of the battlefield. He told us if we would like to cover something that would make us famous. Something related with the book. He told us about something that the Nazis were doing and that no one knew about. Of course, we laughed in his face, but he just answered with a smile, and let the book with us, saying that we should give it a look.

And we did. Then, after a couple of weeks, I don't exactly understand how even now, but we were in Berlin. The man, that albino bastard, he got us inside the city. The book... its words... they took us as if we were children reading a bedtime story for the first time.

 _Necronomicon_.

How in the name of God did I even read something with that name?

* * *

 ** _San Francisco_**

"Greetings, Jackie Chan," Tchang Zu, the Thunder Demon, now inhabiting the human body of Preston Fisher; said mockingly as he prepared a lightning bolt in his palm in order to obliterate Jackie once and for all. "AND FAREWELL!"

"Bad day!" Jackie shouted in terror, as his mind still hadn't processed that the Thunder Demon was out of the Netherworld once again, and even worse, occupying a human body. Those questions passed fast over his mind, which was now completely focused on the coming attack.

"HIYAH!" Jade shouted, jumping in the air and kicking Tchang Zu in the head with a flying kick, sending him to the ground and cancelling his incoming attack. She landed near Jackie and lent him a hand, helping him to his feet. Then she noticed the body of the driver over the concrete. "Is he… _dead_?"

Jackie kneeled at the agent's side and put his fingers in his neck. After a couple of seconds, his expression relaxed and softened. "He's just unconscious."

"Fiuh… Good heavens." Jade said. She then looked at how the possessed Preston got up in a rather unnecessarily complicated maneuver, pivoting over his back and jumping in order to be up again.

"Who dares?!" Tchang Zu exclaimed in his usual booming voice, charging more lighting around his body, looking as if he was a human-shaped Tesla coil. He looked at Jade and, seeing Jackie at his size, realized that it had been she who had hit him. "You! Who are you, mortal?! How dare you denying me of my REVENGEEEEE?!" Tchang Zu exclaimed.

Jade, meanwhile, had put her fingers in her eardrums. _Why bad guys had to always be so freaking over the top?_ , the youngest of the Chans thought. "So, Tchang Zu, the Thunder Demon? Wasn't he locked in the Netherworld with the other winners of Friendliest Family in the World?"

"He should be!" Jackie said. "Uncle, where are you, we kind of need a chi spell right now and… careful!"

Jackie and Jade jumped each one to opposed sides in order to evade the incoming attacks of Tchang Zu, who had shot another stream of lightning towards the pair. The Thunder Demon looked incredibly irritated. "You think that you will be able to send me back to the Netherworld?! HA! Foolish mortals, I am a spirit now! The barriers of the Netherworld cannot constrain me anymore I am free! Free to conquer, free to roam, free to…" Tchang Zu then looked at the street around him. Neither Jackie nor Jade were anywhere in sight of the demon. Blasting lightning from his mouth, Tchang Zu roared in anger. "How dare you flee from a battle?! Coward; show yourself, Jackie CHAN! Show yourself or I will obliterate everything and everyone in this meaningless city!"

"Well, maybe if someone was paying attention to his opponents instead of being a Prima Dona!" Jade said, getting the demon's attention.

Standing near the crashed SUV of Section 13, Jackie and Jade were pulling together one of the wheels of the vehicle, that was almost one man's size. Then, with a little effort, they launched the wheel towards Tchang Zu, who looked at the incoming projectile as if it was nothing. "Stupid mortals, you attack a being with god-like power with tools meant for a carriage!" Tchang Zu fired another lightning towards the wheel, but the attack seemed to have no effect upon impacting against the coming wheel. "What?!" Tchang Zu exclaimed before the wheel hit him, sending him to the ground once again, groaning in pain.

"And maybe taking lessons in modern physics could have been a good idea, Thunder-idiot" Jade said with a mocking grin.

"Jade focus, we have to find Uncle," Jackie said at her side. "Without a chi spell, Tchang Zu could do a lot of harm if we aren't able to hold him for long. Uncle! Are you here?"

"Aiyah!" Jackie heard the elder's voice coming from the crashed and upside down SUV. "Uncle's here! Why is nephew making so much noise in the morning?" the voice paused for a brief time. "Why is Tohru in my room? Why has the room turned into a car?! TOHRU! WAKE UP!"

Rising from the debris that was the car at that moment, Tohru mumbled some incoherent words before noticing were he was. "What happened?" the Japanese giant asked.

"Short story, Tchang Zu is back from the Netherworld, has possessed a human, and is trying to turn us into Kentucky Fried Chicken." Jade explained, as Tchang Zu got up again, albeit with some difficulty in this case. Not wanting to let the possessing monster to take another chance into shooting them, Jade dazed towards him and started to exchange blows with the man. Jade had to admit that, for how incredibly scrawny this dude looked; he was really strong, probably due to the demon's possession. As Jade vigorously blocked a punch directed to her ribs, and counterattacked with a kick that Tchang Zu blocked with not too much effort, she sighed internally. Why did the bad guys always get the cool power ups?

"The Thunder Demon?" Tohru, remaining at Jackie's side, asked in disbelief while Jade battled the possessed human. "But how is that possible?"

"Answer later, magic now!" Jackie pressed the mountain of a man.

"How does Jackie want Tohru and Uncle to help, if they have no blow-fish or lizard? Uncle and Tohru need to go inside shop in order to use magic!" Uncle's voice came again from the car. Peeping inside, Jackie and Jade saw that the Chinese elder remained in his seat, hanging upside down. "One more thing, Uncle doesn't have castanets, the symbol of the Immortal who first defeated Tchang Zu, so no banishing demon for now! And one more thing!" Uncle said while struggling with his security belt. "I seem to be trapped."

"Don't worry sensei." Tohru said before ripping the entire seat where Uncle was sitting and taking it out of the crashed SUV, with Uncle still sat at it, of course. "We will prepare something to restrain Tchang Zu, but you must distract him to give us time." the Japanese Chi Wizard said.

"One more thing!" Uncle yelled, taking something from his suit's sleeve and then tossing it to Jackie. It was a little triangular amulet made of wood hanging from a small collar that, for some reason, stunk to garlic. "Use this to harm Thunder Demon; is imbued with good magic."

Jackie nodded, gripping the little amulet. "Right Uncle; now hurry!" the archeologist said as the pair of chi wizards headed to the shop and he ran towards the battle that his niece was fighting alone.

"You only have chosen dying by my hands than by my lightning, mortal!" Tchang Zu said as he struggled with Jade. "But I will remember you that stood in my way and battled the great Lord of Thunder! Who are you, mortal? Give me your name so I can tell to my future slaves of whom I made an example of what happens if someone stands against my will!"

"I liked you more when you stopped talking like that!" Jade yelled at him while she blocked more blows and attacked. She flipped backwards and hit Tchang Zu in his now human chin with the top of her foot, and then she twirled backwards in order to put some space between them. "And what do you meant with 'who are you'?" Jade asked offended. "I'm Jade Chan, ultra-awesome agent of Section 13, and kicker of demon-butt! You don't remember me?"

Tchang Zu looked confused for a moment. "The infant that was fooled by Hsi Wu?" the Thunder Demon asked in disbelief. "You have grown… but the bigger they are, the better they melt!" Tchang Zu said, adding another potent charge of lightning and taking another shot at Jade, who dodged barely, this time getting injured in her left arm, the contact of the lightning shattering and burning away the sleeve of her suit and leaving a serious burn in her flesh.

Jade dried a shout of pain in her throat and resisted the urge to touch her burn and tend to it. She glanced furiously at Tchang Zu, who was smirking at her both in a pedantic and malicious way. "See? That is exactly what I meant with…!"

Tchang Zu got interrupted when Jackie jumped and delivered a descending kick over his head by surprise. The Thunder Demon tumbled a little due to the impact, his head hurting and his vision blurring. "Ack… weak human body…"

Taking advantage of her uncle's entrance, an angry Jade rushed to the possessed human and punched Tchang Zu directly in the face as strong as she could, feeling his nose to break under her fist. "Agh! Pathetic human nose!" Tchang Zu screamed as his hands covered his nose as blood started to pour from it, painting both his hands and the lower part of his face in red.

"Jade, that's an innocent person, even if possessed!" Jackie scolded her, but then noticed the burn in her arm. "Jade, your arm!"

The teen shrugged. "It's nothing, I'm okay."

"You are burned!"

"It will be worse!" Tchang Zu said as he charged another attack, but then he tumbled and fell to the ground. "Uh... my head is spinning." He got in his feet barely, slow and tumbling. "Weak human flesh..." he whispered.

"Oh, don't be such a whinny," Jade commented. "Weren't you the 'Great Lord of Thunder' just moments ago?" she mocked.

"Silence! In the moment I recover..." Tchang Zu said in anger. But then Jackie threw Uncle's amulet at him, the Thunder Demon inhabiting a human body catching it withou further difficulty. Tchang Zu looked at the little triangular object with something between confusion and amusement. "And what this should be? If you think that tossing cheap jewelry to me will... ARGH!"

Tchang Zu screeched in pain as the little amulet started to glow green and the good chi that had been casted in the amulet started to burn the whole body of the demon in human form. The Thunder Demon threw the little amulet aside. "FILTHY GOOD CHI MAGIC!"

"You know, Mr. Talking Battery," Jade called the demon in human body. "For someone that brags about being so better than us, you kinda choose a weak team player over there." she said while pointing to Preston's body. "I have seen ballet dancers with more muscles."

"Of course he is weak!" Tchang Zu exclaimed. "I choose him for that same reason!"

"So, let me see if I get this straight." Jade continued, no masking her mockery. "You choose in purpose a weak body in order to go after the people who went toe to toe with you AND your siblings at full power."

Tchang Zu pointed at Jade while he opened his mouth as to say something, but then he looked sideways and closed his mouth slowly. Then he looked at both Jackie and Jade speechless. _I made a terrible mistake_ , he thought.

"And to be fair, there are better places to attack us than here." Jackie said as he pointed into the shop's direction.

"What do you mean with that?!" the Thunder Demon asked before looking at the shop's entrance, where Tohru and Uncle (still attached to the ripped seat) were, blowfish, lizard and a couple of potions in hand.

The chant of ' _Yu Mo Gui Gwai Fai Di Zao_ ' that neither Jackie or Jade had heard into a long time fill the street where the battle had unfolded, and as the two chi wizards chanted their blowfishes and lizards glowed green and they shot a combined beam of good chi towards the demon. Tchang Zu looked horrified at the incoming attack and charging lightning, he fired his own beam of energy towards Tohru's and Uncle's. The two energy streams collided and struggled with each other, until the beam of chi magic started to win the upper hand.

"No! I won't be defeated!" Tchang Zu exclaimed, struggling with great effort in order for his lightning to not be crushed. "I won't return to the Netherworld! Not the skies covered in ash! Not the endless emptiness! Not to that thing, twirling above…"

For a moment, the memory flashed in Tchang Zu's mind for enough time for him to lose concentration and for the stream of good chi magic to overpower the lightning. The attack struck Tchang Zu with all its strength, knocking the fuming human form of the Thunder Demon to the ground, this time, unconscious.

"Finally!" Jade said. "Guy took a lot of damage before going down."

Jackie looked a Tchang Zu's, or rather, Preston's unconscious body. He checked the man's vital signals and after making sure that he wasn't dead, he looked around. The street had ended pretty damaged, lightning strikes could be seen both in the concrete of the street and in the exterior walls of the buildings. The SUV continued crashed in the middle of the road, and the agent that had driven them home continued unconscious, lying on the ground.

"I will call Captain Black." Jackie said, frustrated that the presence of magic still was present in his life. After all these years, he should have grown accustomed to the idea of dealing with magical artifact and forces of evil chasing him and his family to the end of the world, but after four years he thought that he could finally have some peace. He was wrong.

"Jackieeee!" the archeologist heard his uncle. "Release Uncle from seat belt before calling Captain Black! And one more thing, the tuxedo I bought you will come from your pocket!"

The archeologist noted how the jacket of his suit had been almost torn to shreds, probably by a combination of the possessed human's attacks and his own movements during battle. Jackie smiled. Well, at least his family was also a constant.

* * *

 ** _Section 13_**

Preston Fisher awoke only to feel extreme pain through his whole body. After he managed to open his eyes properly, he found himself in the interiors of a small room only occupied by a bed, a toilet and a mirror over a sink. The only light was the one proportioned by a little lamp in the ceiling and the one that entered via a large door made of reinforced crystal that served as entrance and exit of the room. There were no windows, and even for someone like Preston, it was clear that he was in a cell. But first things first, Preston got up from the bed and looked himself in the mirror. He had been bandaged almost from head to toe, especially in the face and the head. He touched his nose and winced due to the pain. "Whatever happened to my nose?" Preston asked to nobody as he checked out the rest of his body. "And to me?" He then noted how some sort of chinese symbol had been written over his forehead. "And what the hell is this?"

"I think you should leave that on, Mr.… Fisher, right?" the voice of Captain Black came from the glass door, surprising Preston enough to jump a little and look at him in shock.

"W-Where am I?" Preston asked. "How I ended here? Why am I covered in bandages? You can't hold me here, I have rights!"

Black shook his head silently. "Mr. Fisher, I'm sorry to told you this, but you are… _sick_ ; and sadly, your sickness could be pretty harmful for the people in the streets if we release you."

"Oh my God… I have the smallpox, don't I?" Preston asked, as he fell to his knees. "I'm going to die! Who will do my work if not me? No one knows how the system goes if I don't explain them how!"

Black rose an eyebrow at how not working anymore was the man's most prominent concern. "Mr. Fisher, I assure you that it's not smallpox." Black spoke. "But you have something inside your body that could prove fatal if left free from this place. That tattoo, if you like to call it that, it's what keeps your sickness under control."

Preston looked at Black in disbelief. "How can a tattoo keep a sickness under control?!" Preston shouted, just to cough and touch his ribcage with both hands. "Oh... it hurts."

"Mr. Fisher, do you recall how and where you were before waking up in this place?" Black asked.

"I don't know... no, wait. I was in my apartment and then the TV, and the phone, and the lightning..." Preston said, remembering the moment his own body had started.

"For the moment you will stay here until our experts are sure that letting you out won't be dangerous." Captain Black said, and then tried to look at Preston as warmly as he could. "If they say so, we will get you a more comfortable room. Until then, welcome to Section 13, Preston Fisher. And remember, don't remove the tattoo." Black said as he left the scene, leaving Preston alone in his new room, meditating about how he had ended in this surrealist but apparently totally real situation.

* * *

Captain Black entered Director White's office as soon as he could. Inside, he found the exact same scene he had found hours before, with the whole Chan family waiting inside and White behind his desk. Unlike before, however, the Chans were standing; with Uncle and Tohru discussing something with White while Jackie and Jade stood a little away from them. Black approached them trying to not molest the wizards and the Director. While he respected and admitted White's presence as something very helpful and valuable, he also knew that with a snap of his fingers he could send him out of the organization. So, unless strictly necessary, he will let the Director to his politics and he will maintain with his operations and field duty; a perspective that Black actually found very pleasant. Truth to be told, he didn't miss the insufferable mountains of paperwork.

"How's the burn, Jade?" Black asked softly to the new agent, who upon the captain's question tapped her now bandaged arm.

"Better." Jade answered. "How's that Preston guy?"

"I think that he is trying to cope with everything." Black answered. "How are things for here?"

Jackie moved his hand towards the other three men. "See for yourself."

Over White's desk were spread numerous books detailing not only specifics about demonic possession, but also about the Demon Sorcerers and the Eight Immortals. White was drumming his fingers against the surface of his desk while Uncle and Tohru discussed theories.

"Maybe Tchang Zu lost his body and that is how he was able to cross to our plane from the Netherworld?" Tohru said. "None of them seemed very close to each other. Perhaps a battle happened and his body got destroyed."

"Aiyah... But if that is the case, all Demon Sorcerers could be free now." Uncle complained, and then his eyes widened in horror. "Aiyah! All Demon Sorcerers could be free now!" Could this be it? The feeling of dread that the elder had felt the night before? "This is very bad news! As long as they don't use their powers continuously, Uncle would be unable to locate them! They will camouflage themselves with the human's chi!"

"Sensei, we don't know if all of them are free." Tohru tranquilized him. "It could be just Tchang Zu, and we have him locked here."

"But for how long?" Uncle asked. "If we exorcise him out of thin-man then Thunder Demon could go to other body! Demon Netherworld can't hold demons in spiritual form! Eight Immortals never designed it that way!"

"Why?" Jade asked, getting near to Uncle. "I mean, they could have put some ward or... OW!"

"Do not question wisdom of the Immortals!" Uncle said as he hit her.

"Oh, c'mon Uncle, it's common sense!" Jade said as she rubbed the spot where Uncle had hit her. "I mean, even you put that spell in Shendu's astral form when he possessed me."

Uncle fell silent for a moment, before smiling. "I did." he muttered. "Jackie!" the elder called, as he took a pen and a piece of paper that was over White's desk. He then wrote a list of diverse things on it. "Uncle needs these ingredients." Uncle handed the piece of paper to Jackie and then pointed to White. "Director, Uncle will borrow one of your books."

White raised an eyebrow. "Okay... serve yourself."

"One more thing!" Uncle said while he walked to one of the bookshelves and picked one of the tomes of chi magic and went back to the desk of the Director. "Jade and Tohru need to bring mask of Tarakudo to safety, the sooner, the better."

"Wait, what does that have to do with...?" White asked just before Uncle slapped him. The Director looked at Black, quite amused. Did this mean that he had passed a ritual of some sorts?

Uncle for his part looked pretty serious. "Shendu had control over one tribe of Shadowkhan without putting on its general's mask, by using a complicated spell no doubt. A rare spell that the other Demon Sorcerers probably know too. Tchang Zu may be a hotheaded enemy, but the likes of the Moon, Sky or Wind demons are not. If there are more Demon Sorcerers out there and they take a body, they could go after the mask in order to have army of shadows at their disposal."

Jackie flinched for a second. The thought of having Shendu's family running free around the world wasn't pleasant in the slightest, but having them with the power of the nine tribes of Shadowkhan at their total control? That was terrifying.

"Tch. We kicked their butts before, and we'll do it again." Jade said in confidence.

"Jade?" Jackie asked his niece. "What have we talked about in our way here?

Jade rolled her eyes. "That jumping at threats in arrogance only leads to underestimating your foes and being defeated." Jade quoted her uncle word for word. "Who do you think I am, Hak Foo?" Jade asked before a chuckle escaped her mouth as she imagined herself as a female version of the red headed ex-mercenary, blue bodysuit and all, shouting something overdramatic as 'ANGRY CROW TAKES FLIGHT!" in her own way.

"Well, I suppose I could advance the meeting a few hours, but none of the other parts involved will make a reunion before tomorrow just because of the possibility of the demons being free," White told the presents.

"Good, then Jade and Tohru will leave tomorrow with the first lights of the day." Uncle said as he passed page after page of White's book before he found what he was looking for. "Meanwhile Uncle will try to build a prison to contain Tchang Zu's spirit once he has been removed from Fisher's body."

"And what do I do?" Jackie asked to the elder.

"Jackie will remain here and help Uncle with demon's container and protect Uncle from forces of evil" Uncle said. "And he will prepare tea, of course."

"Then I suppose that we have all this settled," White said. "Now, if you all could leave, if a have a significant number of calls to make. Mr. Tohru, Jade; be ready at the port tomorrow at seven o'clock and a boat will take you and Augustus to the compound of the Pacific."

"I'll take some agents to accompany us," Black added. "In case someone decides that he wants a bunch of shadow creeps as his personal army."

"Good point." White retorted as he picked his phone with his only hand. "Now, if you'll excuse me…" the Director said as he started to push the phone's buttons and making a call.

"Oh yes, don't worry." Jackie said as he took Jade by the shoulders and the Chans and Captain Black left the office. Before the door closed, White could hear the voice of Jade. "Wait, what does that seven o'clock mean? Like, in the morning?"

As soon as they disappeared, White stopped from pressing buttons and hanged his phone. He got up from his seat and approached the mirror that was silently resting in the corner of his office. White touched the surface with his only palm, and after a few moments, the surface of the mirror started to produce ripples within it, as if it was composed of a dense liquid. After several minutes, the mass stopped from moving and then something crawled out of the glass of the mirror, materializing itself in front of White. It was an insectoid creature of about one meter and a half of stature, no bigger than an average man. It was a large, pinkish, fungous, crustacean-like entity; it's main body a large worm-like thing, which ended in a scorpion tail and was sustained by a pair of powerful three fingered claws of great size and strength. Were a head should be there was an ellipsoid of sorts, composed of pyramided, fleshy rings and covered in antennae. In the front part of its main body were several pairs of appendages and limbs very reminiscent of the claws of a crab, moving as if they were the legs of a spider. At the body's back there were several wings of different size, but they seemed to not being of use to the being, as they were all closed and without movement.

" _Did you request the presence of Mi-Go, Joseph White?_ " the being asked in a raspy and unusual tone of voice. White never was sure if the Mi-Go really had been able to learn English, or were just using an instant translation via their telepathy. The grey-skinned Director bowed slightly to the being.

"Indeed." White spoke with respect, but authority. "It seems that a being know as Demon Sorcerer was set free from another dimension known as the Netherworld. I want to know if there are more like him out; if it's not a big problem."

" _It shouldn't be._ " Mi-Go answered. The insectoid creature trembled a little, his multiple crustacean appendages moving fast, as if they were checking a large book. " _Negatives of_ _八卦_ _. They were trapped in an opposed plane of this universe. Seven of them were freed by the King in Yellow. The one with command over Fire remains in that Void, as does his offspring._ "

White cracked his neck. The sound of his bones sounded weirder than normal, unnatural, as if there were too many bones. "One of those idiots and his shortsighted way of thinking has almost cost me my entire operation. I don't want them to interfere when I'm so damn close to my objective."

" _It was Lord Hastur's desire for them to be free._ " Mi-Go retorted. " _It is not under Mi-Go's authority to question a Great Old One's will, independently of how much his cultists threaten and torture Mi-Go. Neither is under yours, hybrid._ "

The word didn't have a derogatory tone on it; but White frowned over hearing it. The Director cracked his neck again. When he did it this time his neck bended more than a human neck should have. "This could prove also in our mutual benefit, though." White said while he took his fingers to his chin and regained some calm. "Could you find the other six for me?"

The creature titled its fungous head. " _And what does Mi-Go get?_ " the creature asked as his legs moved and the two large ones that sustained its worm-like body drummed against the floor.

White smirked and cracked a disturbing, deep laugh. "Do you still pursue the concept of intuition?"

The creature gave something similar to a nod. " _Mi-Go does. The humans that had been collected by Mi-Go in this city had proven very useful. Mi-Go also thanks you for providing Mi-Go with a place for working under the city._ "

"No need for flattery," White said. "But, maybe I have something to give you; because I have met a human with a great intuition today. If you give me the information," White said. "I'll give you the human."

The creature produced a weird sound by rubbing its claws and appendages with each other. The scorpion tail smashed several times against the floor, as indicating the being's excitement. " _Mi-Go... accepts your conditions. Mi-Go will have your information._ " Mi-Go started to leave towards the mirror. " _Ah, one more thing. Mi-Go has lost track of one Shoggoth lately. Mi-Go advises to be careful in the tunnels beneath the city._ " And with that, the insectoid being entered the mirror and disappeared as it had appeared.

White went to his desk and let himself down in his chair. "Oh sure, you lost a Shoggoth," White said in a sarcastic tone as he took the phone again and started to dial his contacts for real this time. "Well, I suppose that it went as good as it could go with worshippers of the Black Pharaoh."

* * *

"Hello? Preston Fisher, right?"

Preston looked at the glass entrance of his room. He had been either resting or sitting in his new bed for the past hour. The voice was both welcome and suspicious. During his short time here the bronze haired man had started to put together some theories about his current location, and he had come to the conclusion that he was, for some reason, in a facility under the Government's control. Secret facility, probably, as they had completely ignored all his pleas about seeing his lawyer or calling to his job. So hearing a voice, this one clearly not belonging to the bald man from before; Preston was both wary about what this person wanted to do to him (images of himself attached to an operation table flashed in his mind, clearly product of the memory of some movie) and thankful at the fact of having a conversation. He got up from the bed and walked towards the glass door. He wasn't expecting a teenage girl with black hair falling in curly bangs to the sides of her head, golden-like almond eyes and a bandage around her left arm; all dressed in a quite trashed dark blue suit. But that was exactly what he got.

"Hi." Jade said, waving her hand at the other side. Preston frowned slightly. What kind of agency employed teens?

"Hello." Preston said. "Do you want something?"

"Just a little talk," Jade answered. "And I suppose to say sorry, too. I'm the one who broke your nose; sorry for that, hehe…"

"You broke my nose?" Preston asked in a dumbfounded tone. "Wait a second, did you… did you do this to me?!" the man said in a irritated tone as he pointed to his body's state.

"What? No, no. Well, not the majority of it." Jade answered. "But we had to stop you, you were shooting lightning in the middle of the city trying to kill us, and… that's not important. Look, I forgot that your body was yours in the middle of things and I hit you with very bad intentions, and…"

"Stop there." Preston said. "What do you mean trying to kill you? I didn't try to kill anyone; I remember my apartment, and the lightning and then waking up here…" Preston's eyes widened in horror. "Oh my God, that's it, isn't it? I'm a freak, like those things of four years ago!"

Was he referring to the Shadowkhan or maybe the Oni generals that walked free through San Francisco for a while? Or perhaps to Drago and his peers? Nevermind, this guy needed to calm down, so much stress all of a sudden couldn't be good for him, or at least that was Jade's opinion. "Okay, listen here; you aren't a 'freak'." Jade said trying to calm Preston down. "It's just that you got a problem, mainly about shooting lighting from your body, and we are trying to find a… Agh, this doesn't get us anywhere. You're possessed by a demon, okay?"

Preston stopped from babbling in anguish about his situation and looked straight to Jade. "What?"

"You. Are. Possessed. By a demon." Jade repeated slowly. "A Thunder Demon, to be exact, which my family and I threw time ago into another dimension and now has come for revenge… by using your body, sorry about that too."

"I'm possessed by a demon?" Preston asked, and then let out a relived sigh. "Well, that's… kind of tranquilizing."

"Is it? Whoa, kind of expecting you to freak out there." Jade commented.

"Well, that means that I can get exorcised, right?" Preston asked.

Jade folded her arms and nodded. "Yeah, Uncle is going to make a spell to get Sparky out of you. You are taking this pretty well, thought."

"Well, if it's not a logical explanation, it must be magic." Preston said. "That, or aliens. Have you ever met an alien? That thing that was flying above the stadium four years ago was pretty alien to me."

"Nope, he was all magic." Jade said. She laughed a little in the inside. This guy was proving much easier to talk to than she had thought at first! "Never thought that someone could believe in the 'magic' explanation so fast. And before you ask, I have never met an alien."

"Well, you never know. Four years ago if someone had asked me if I believed in an advancing mass of darkness commanded by a pair of monsters; I would have laughed in that someone's face. But now, well, the world's changing." Preston said. "Thank you for coming, anyway. It's nice having a decent explanation about what has happened to me, instead what that bald man told me."

"Don't blame Captain Black." Jade said. "He didn't know if telling you could be better or not before knowing if there was a solution." Jade looked at a little watch that was at her sleeve. "Look, my family is waiting for me, because we were just going out for lunch before all of this and…" Jade sighed, stopped talking and breathed deeply. "Sorry again about your nose, and try to recover. Bye!"

"Good bye." Preston said. After Jade disappeared from in front the glass door, he got back to his bed and sat in it. So, demonic possession then? Well, he was more a sci-fi guy than a religious horror guy, but he had to admit that it was something you didn't see every day. And it had to have a cure, it had to. Preston lied back in his bed, and little by little, he fell asleep.

* * *

 ** _The next morning_**

Jade, dressed in a very similar black uniform to the one her future self would use in not so many years ahead; rubbed her eyes, trying to take the tiredness away. After her talk with Preston yesterday, she and her family had lunch in Section 13's cafeteria instead of the restaurant they had chosen for her graduation party. Uncle was reading like crazy from the Director's book, while Tohru seemed occupied with preparing spells and wards for Big Red's mask. That let Jade and Jackie to talk about the archeologist's late works out of the country while Jade told him about the toughest parts of her training in Section 13. Sometimes during the lunch, it had come to Jade's mind to bring the subject of Viper, but she decided not to. That was something the two adults had to resolve in their own.

Jackie congratulated her behavior concerning Preston and lamented that Jade's 'great day' had been ruined by a demon. But surprisingly, Jade wasn't. Sure, she had been incredibly upset at Mr. 'Great Lord of Thunder' for crashing her happy moment with her family, but... maybe it was the adrenaline, or the fact that she had fought back to back with Jackie against a lightning shooting madman; but she felt at home. It was a somehow creepy thought, but she had missed this stuff. The magic, the ugly demons trying to destroy the world and her family stopping them in their adventures. The last night, talking with Steph until late about her encounter with Tchang Zu, the blonde had called her nuts for wanting that life back. Jade had retorted that Steph had signed in a secret agency too, but her friend said that she had signed up for the computers, the tech and the good salary; not to fight supernatural beings. Jade found that funny about Steph, she was incredible for 'mission control'; but horrible in battle. Well, not horrible, just average; but when you live with Jackie Chan, average tends to be quite overshadowed.

Speaking of Steph, who was dressed into a more usual and feminine clothing, she was there too, trying to not fall asleep as hard as Jade was. Who was the genius that dictated that the best way to organize the day was to make seven in the morning the official hour to start everything? Heck, even the other agents, the older ones, seemed like needing a nap, only being helped by the coffees someone had brought to the scene.

Jackie was there, yawning from time to time, but more focused in the fact that Jade was going to leave the town in her own for a while, even if it was with Tohru and Captain Black. He would usually come and ask Jade if she had picked everything that she needed for the trip, and she would answer mumbling something very similar to an affirmation that somehow Jackie was able to understand.

Tohru and Uncle arrived a little after that, the old Chinese wizard being the only one of the attendants to be fresh like a lettuce. Tohru was carrying a large bag, full of potions and diverse chi items. Uncle was making questions to Tohru in a very similar vein to how Jackie asked her, only it was about having picked out the right ingredients and having enough onions; to which Tohru replied with a respectful 'Yes, sensei' every time.

The last to arrive was Captain Black, carrying a metal box under his arm which, after gathering everyone around, he opened it; revealing a glass box under it, and Tarakudo's mask in all its glory inside that one.

"Well, here's the mission, everyone." Black said as he pointed to the mask. "Tohru here will come with us to the Pacific Compound in order to protect the mask and cast new spells over it. It's of vital importance that the mask stays within Tohru's range of action and that it never gets out of sight. And of course, no one is permitted to put on it." Black then pointed to a group of five agents that were standing near to the main group. Apparently it seemed directed by the same agent that drove them home yesterday. He seemed pretty well for having had a crash via Thunder Demon the day before. "Sergeant Gutierrez and his team here will be put in constant surveillance over Uncle's Rare Finds in order to protect Jackie and Mr. Chan if someone decides to attack them like yesterday. Everything clear?"

Each one of the agents, including Jade, gave Black a sonorous 'Yes, sir!' and they started to head to the boat that was waiting for them. It will be a long way until they reached the Compound, and an equal way back home. And of course, expending time there…

"One more thing!" Uncle said before everyone started to leave. He then pulled out several collars from one of the bags Tohru had brought, putting them around the agents' necks. "This are imbued with good chi, so if demon tries to possess you, it will prevent them from using your body."

"Take care of yourself, Jade." Jackie said as a farewell as h and Jade shared a hug. "And remember what you promised, no getting into trouble."

"Duh." Jade said. "You worry too much, uncle Jackie."

"Don't worry, Mr. Chan!" Stephanie stepped in, embracing Jade from behind. "I'll protect Jade from all harm!"

"More like I will protect you, dummy." Jade said, and the two girls walked towards the boat, letting Jackie to grab Tohru's arm and stop him.

"Look after her for me, Tohru." Jackie asked the Japanese mountain of a man.

The sumo nodded slowly, while a warm expression took over his semblance. "Always, Jackie. Look after sensei for me; he has been a little down usually, like something is molesting him."

"I'll see what I can do with that." Jackie answered, and gave the sumo a pat in the side of his arm. "Have a nice trip, my friend."

The boat departed with its passengers and its valuable load inside, Jackie, Uncle, and the team of agents directed by Gutierrez, were all left alone in the port. Jackie and Uncle looked at the boat going more and more far with each second that passed, and as the vehicle disappeared by the horizon, Uncle put a hand in Jackie's shoulder. "Now nephew knows what is to be like Uncle."

Jackie looked one more time at the boat. "I do."

* * *

The 'trip' to the Compound hadn't been as long as Tohru had thought about. In no more than a day, Section 13's boat arrived at a colossal construct floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in a midpoint between the America and Asia. Built in a metallic tone that reflected the sunbeams, it was a large cross with two airports and two ports in each one of the cross' arms. In the cross' center was something very similar to a large building, very similar to a tower that somehow reminded Jade of the one that served as Hsi Wu's castle back in that alternate reality. This one was smaller, stylized and of a platinum tone; but it was very similar.

"There's more than what meets the eye." Black spoke as the boat approached one of the ports and anchored there. "There is even more underwater, and goes all until the bottom. The lower the place, the most secure it is." Black pointed to the tower. "The higher level is for agents and other staff." His finger moved from the top of the tower to its bottom and the pointed even lower. "The lower levels are for prisoners with magical knowledge or know for abusing it in the past. Then there are cells made for criminals with supernatural abilities, and the lowest level if for things like the mask."

Tohru frowned. They needed to take the mask into the ocean itself? And worse, he would have to stay there until his magical defenses had been put? Great.

Meanwhile Jade was looking both excited and impressed at the structure. As the agents descended from the boat, she looked for Stephanie and grabbed her arm. "Hey Steph, could you get me the blueprints for this place?"

"What?" Stephanie asked. "Jade, this is probably the place with the strongest firewall and software in the face of the planet!" Stephanie smirked. "I'll get you something when I'm free."

"Great," Black said as he pointed to a pair of men waiting at the base of the tower without paying attention to the two teenage girls talk. "Takashi and Benoit are already here."

Waiting in front of an immense gate were two men of an advanced age. One of them was a slender and thin man of high stature with light grey hair that in one moment in the past must have been blond. He had a short, trimmed beard adorning his face, and little marks across the neck and behind the ears, a result of a surgery operation. His companion was a short Japanese man, who hadn't bothered to hide his real age with operations and so had a wrinkled, shaved face that matched his shaved head. Ovr his dark eyes rested a pair of tiny, circular glasses, and his skin looked tanned after a youth and adulthood under the sun.

"Everyone," Black said as they approached the pair. "Meet Benoit Belpois, representativeof Section 13's newly French branch within the European Union," the captain said pointing to the man of the beard. "And Takashi Matsuoka, head of the Japanese Agency Against Magical Threats... did I say it right?"

"The translation is a bit literal." the Japanese man said with a very marked accent as he bowed respectfully in the usual Japanese fashion. "But it sums up what we try to accomplish, Black-san."

Benoit was quicker to advance towards Black with a smile and taking his hand he shook it vigorously. "Monsieur Black! Good to see you!" the man glanced at the agents behind Black. "You have brought... a lot of company." The voice seemed neutral, but Black caught a slight suspicious tone behind it.

"We have a little problem yesterday." Black said. "The Chans got attacked by a Level Three. I'll explain later."

Benoit lost the suspiciousness of his eyes and the pointed to the gate of the Compound. "I think we should take this inside then, and discuss things alone. Dragunov and Lin have been here for quite a while."

"Very well." Black said. "Tohru, take the mask with some agents and get it to the lowest level, members of the staff will show you the way. I'll see you all later."

Tohru grabbed the box that held Tarakudo's mask inside it even more tightly. Glancing at Jade, she gave him a thumbs-up.

It was time to show that not only Jade had earned her graduation.

* * *

 ** _San Francisco_**

Back in Uncle's Rare Finds, specifically in the shop's backroom, Jackie was starting to feel a little uncomfortable. Having four agents guarding the perimeter of Uncle's shop while Gutierrez himself was inside was hard enough for him, but having also the Chinese elder going from one corner to another of the shop like a madman, trying to find the corrects tomes in order to cast the correct spells. The book that Uncle had taken from Director White's library seemed to be of incredible help, but Uncle was trying to find the appropriate form of using the spells in it. According to the old man, he was trying to create an inanimate container in order to trap Tchang Zu's spiritual form inside it once removed from Preston, so the Thunder Demon couldn't possess another body or escape said object. And so, meanwhile the elder wizard worked in different vessels in order to restrain the spirit form of the demon, Jackie prepared tea, spoke with Gutierrez and his teammates, and just relaxed.

After one day since Jade's and Tohru's departure, something started to roam his mind. A sensation, like the peal of a drum in the back of his body. Did he… did he felt useless for a moment? He had nothing to do here, and albeit he hated the fact that he was involved with all this magical shenanigans over again, a part of him had to admit that maybe he was losing his touch. Thinking back to their battle with Tchang Zu two days before, Jackie had to admit that it had been Jade the one that had fought more the Thunder Demon out of the two. Jackie, resting now over a chair while Uncle drank a cup of tea and worked in a pentagonal box, rubbed the back of his head. For years he had asked for a tranquil life that didn't involve demons, or forces of darkness, or another thing like that. He had wanted to forget about magic, but now that was likely impossible, and he seemed to accustom to the idea. After Drago's rampage over San Francisco four years ago, many people had started to speculate what that all was about.

Aliens, terrorists, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse; those had been some of the most popular theories at first. He remembered seeing a priest in TV that claimed that it had been a heavenly punishment, that God had unleashed the hordes of hell in Earth in order to make humankind pay for their sins. Well, he had been somehow right, at least in the 'hordes of hell' part. After that conspiracy theories and people in the internet talking about magic and putting spells in their post. Both Jackie and Tohru had to be very restrictive on Jade in order to make her refrain from creating her own 'magic blog'. But little by little, there were more people that started to understand how the world worked behind the curtains of their normal, rational lives. Jackie suspected that as more time passed more people would start believing in magic and more people would start practicing it.

Jackie sighed. Magic was starting to become something very similar to common norm, his niece had become an agent of a secret agency and now there was he, preparing tea for a man trying to create a container for the chi of a demon. The world really was changing.

"Jackie!" Uncle yelled from his work spot. "Hand Uncle that jar with the leech spittle!" he said pointing to a jar into one of the shop's shelves.

"Yes, Uncle," Jackie replied from his chair as he got up and took the jar from the shelf. "You know, this reminds me of the past, when it was just the two of us."

"You mean when Jackie was as lively as Jade and Uncle had black hair, no wrinkles and could move swiftly?" the Chinese elder asked as a funny smile appeared in his face. "Uhm… yes, veeery good times." Jackie snickered at that remark. His old Uncle was still capable of cracking some funny jokes like those ones.

"Excuse me, Mr. Chan?" came then Gutierrez's voice, as he stepped into the backroom wearing civilian clothes instead of the usual suit the agents usually wore. He handed Jackie a phone. "You have a call."

"Is it a client?" Uncle asked as he put some of the leech spittle over a bunch of herbs in a little pot. "Don't let them make any offers under five hundred dollars!"

"No, Mr. Chan; I'm afraid it's not one of those calls." Gutierrez pressed a button of the phone. "Here, I've put it so everyone can hear."

"Jackie?" came a voice from the phone. A voice Jackie knew far too well.

"El Toro?" Jackie asked aloud in a surprised yet pleased tone. "Is that you?"

"It is, my dear amigo." the voice of El Toro Fuerte came from the machine, the strong Mexican accent of the luchadore making his words sound had on the phone. "But I'm afraid I'm not making a pleasure call. I have bad news."

"What kind of bad news?" Jackie asked.

"We have a little emergency here, in Mexico." El Toro spoke. "There was a riot and an escape in the Topo Chico prison."

Jackie was afraid to ask, because he knew the answer already. And yet, he asked. "What does that have to do with me? It seems like work for your government."

"That's the thing, amigo Jackie." El Toro said. "It can be all just a rumor, but… they say, in the news and in the streets, that the man who instigated the riot and escaped with some others… they say that he could produce earthquakes."

Jackie shivered and cursed in his thoughts. Now this seemed like the worst of things that were probable. Uncle stopped with what he was doing immediately after hearing that, and he started to make questions to El Toro. The luchadore answered as best as he could, and then Uncle hanged the phone.

Jackie went to his room and started to prepare luggage for him and Uncle. Meanwhile, Gutierrez started to make calls to Section 13, trying to get a message to Captain Black and speak with Director White. Of course it would be not only Tchang Zu. Of course there had to be more…

* * *

 ** _Mexico_**

Walking through the shadowy alleys of a small town, three men broke into a little shop. Working fast, they changed from their prison uniforms to something more confortable and well, less suspicious.

"Hey, hermano." one of them spoke, a man of an average look, nothing really special to say about him. "Do you think that the boss is okay? He seemed, weirder than normal, more violent…"

"You worry too much Luis, hermanito." a man older than the other, a huge scar running through his face, said as he adjusted his new acquired shirt. "He got us out, didn't he? So don't complain."

In another room of the shop, a bulky yet somehow short man was putting into some clothes, with not very good choice; but that was excusable with the little light he disposed of. Pedro Guerra had been always a man that had things clear. He knew how to kill, how to inspire fear. That was the reason why the majority of the Drug Cartels used to employ him in order to get rid of the pests… until they put him into that prison, and left him there to rot. Until they had forgotten of him. But now that was going to change. Now he had power, and a new associate that will look for his back. Because it was _his_ back too.

Pedro looked at a vase that held some flowers inside. Noting a pinch of pain in the back of his head, he let his partner to take command for a moment. Pedro's hands moved and crushed the vase into pieces, and then he smashed the fallen flowers under his foot. Eyes without pupils and bighting in red appeared instead of the black ones of Pedro.

"Dai Gui hates flowers…" the Earth Demon murmured with a mouth that wasn't his.

* * *

 **A/N: yes, that seems a good moment to end the chapter. I hope that you all enjoyed this one, because, aside from the action from the beginning, it was dedicated mostly to world building. As said before, this fic is going to start like a JCA season to descent slowly into Lovecraft territory; but don't worry, because I have something prepared for next chapter. The confrontation with Dai Gui should end in chapter five, because is just going to start in the next one (mainly because I want to dwell a little more in how the Compund works), then we will have another little encounter with another Demon Sorcerer in chapter six, and then, in seven; this will take a turn. If things go as I've planned them this should have gone full Lovecraft around chapter ten.**

 **See you all in the next chapter, then. Hope that you enjoyed the read and leave a review if you feel like it.**


	4. Underground

**Disclaimer: I don't own Jackie Chan Adventures; JCA and all its characters are the property of Phil Weinstein, Frank Squillace and Jackie Chan himself.**

 **Author Notes: I'm back! Again! No much to say in this one, except is going to surprise you a little. For more Notes, see end of the chapter, as always. Enjoy your read.**

* * *

Jackie Chan Adventures

Out of the Corner of the Eye

Chapter four

Underground

* * *

 **From the journals of Marcus Malone. Fourth entry. April of 1946**

You may have noted that this entry has taken me more time than the needed. Thinking back at what happened in Berlin is… hard, to say the least. The book… the _Necronomicon_ , its words… We started to read it as a joke of sorts; first Ethan, then Conner, then me and finally Roger. We took turns to read to the others, each one reading a little pages and then passing it to the next one. At first we didn't understood what the hell the book was trying to tell. Due to its length and themes we thought that it was some kind of religious book. And albeit we started it as a joke… _we couldn't stop reading_. The Necronomicon, it told us things… secrets from far beyond the stars. We wanted to know more, we _needed_ to know more. And the albino showed up again, asking us if we wanted to take his previous offer. We all agreed.

And we were in Berlin. It's not that we travelled, just… we were there. The albino took us in an alley and opened a door in it, from which we entered a darkened passage. We walked for… I don't know for how long. But I know we were going down, as if going under Berlin. Down, down… I asked where we were going; and the albino answered that we were going down, very down. He said that they dig very deep, deep, deep… When Roger asked if they were the Nazis… the albino laughed at us.

And then we reached the… the… I'm sorry, I… I think I will let it for the next entry, it's just… I can't.

* * *

"All the names and locations in this list are correct?" White said as he held a cubical device projecting some strange symbols that for normal humans would appear as nothing more than runes but that for people like the Director, were names and coordinates.

" _Affirmative_." a Mi-Go, White wasn't very sure if it was the same that had spoken to him yesterday, said while walking in circles around his desk, as if it was uncomfortable. The absence of Aether in Earth's ambient really was something that bothered the creatures. " _You can keep the Tesseract if you desire so, Mi-Go has many_."

"Why is one of them changing constantly?" White asked, pointing to one of the lines, which had changed just now.

The creature approached White and pointed to the name with one of its crustacean claws. "That _particular one seems to ruin and kill the host only a few hours after taking control of it. Mi-Go had more difficulties with it than with the others. Still, Mi-Go expects that Joseph White is pleased_."

White looked at the list of names, his eyes focusing mainly in three of them. While the first one was clearly a welcomed surprise, the second one could be a problem. And the third one... the third one was both. Still, White cracked his usual, disturbing and deep laugh. "This will do, yes. Either help, or a distraction until I reach my objective."

" _Mi-Go expects what was promised to Mi-Go_." the creature spoke, moving its head, the antennae that decorated it trembling.

"All in due time." White answered. "The human I promised you is now away, in Mexico." the Director explained, remembering Gutierrez's call about Dai Gui and how both Jackie and Uncle were moving there to stop him. "I will hand him to you when he is of no more use."

The creature's claws moved violently for the fraction of a second, and then stopped, the creature heading towards the mirror. " _Mi-Go is very patient. A few more weeks is nothing to Mi-Go, that has been in pursue of intuition since humanity's dawn_." the creature extended all its crustacean claws before leaving. " _But try to play Mi-Go for a fool, hybrid, and no matter whose child you are, you will only be a Shoggoth's dinner._ " and with that, the creature left.

White paid no attention to the threat crustacean-like entity, he was a man of his word and he would give Mi-Go what he had promised. But for now, better keep an eye on the names in that list, they could provide a bit of help if handle correctly. As for the Mi-Go, the creatures should keep their investigations to the underground for the moment.

White took his phone and dialed a number in it. After several seconds, a voice greeted him from the other side of the line, asking his name. "I'm Joseph White," answered the Director. "I know that my offer of a permanent job was rejected, but there is something I would like for someone with your abilities to look into… Yes of course, the payment will be… Ah… of that part I cannot be very certain. Oh! Good, then. It's a deal."

* * *

 ** _The Pacific Compound_**

 _Forget about going Justice League, this all too Marvel_ , Jade thought as Tohru, Steph and her walked down a corridor escorted by a pair of members of the Compound's staff. They were dressed in pretty weird uniforms, almost if they were wearing cat-suits, except they had a considerate bunch of platters over them, and the pair covered their heads in helmets. It reminded Jade more of a piece of armor than any other thing; but considering what she was seeing it was justifiable.

At the sides of the corridor, Jade saw a practically endless number of cells, the majority of them empty, except for some ones holding some… familiar faces. After securing Tarakudo's mask in the lowest part of the Compound, where it now stayed under Tohru's magical wards and tons of steel and water; she had suggested a little walk around the other levels, and her two friends had actually agree to it, more out of boredom than anything else, the dark haired teenager suspected; and they had been greeted by unexpected acquaintances. In the most prominent and probably elaborated of the cells, Kuniko Kasahara, aka Origami, glanced angrily at every person that passed in front of his cell, sometimes even shifting to one of his multiple paper forms. If this was done with the purpose of trying to disturb his wardens or just something that he did in order to kill time was not known.

Another one of the cells was holding no other than Bartholomew Chang. The former crime lord obsessed with jade had actually never look better. It seemed that the youth spell put on him years ago had started grow off in a slow manner, making the Chang in the cell appear quite younger in comparison with the one the J-Team had met in that tournament. He was actually making push-ups when they passed in front of his cell, and he stopped only to glance at them, smile creepily and then return to his workout. In the cell in front of his was imprisoned someone that neither Jade nor Tohru were hoping to encounter anymore in their lives.

Daolon Wong. The depowered dark chi wizard was staying silently in his cell, sitting in the floor and looking at the passers with an anodyne look in his face. Jade didn't even bother to try and mock him. He looked even creepier now that he was so silent than when he was shouting or swearing. For some reason, it made Jade cringe.

After they had abandoned the cell area, Chang stopped his workout routine and looked mockingly at Wong. "What's wrong, old man?" Chang said. "The old age has dried your throat and you cannot speak?"

Wong glanced back hatefully at Chang, his colored eye brightening in pure anger towards the former crime lord, who just smiled at the old man's impotence. "Ah yes, I almost forgot." Chang mocked again. "It's not the throat, right? It's the tongue…" Chang smiled cruelly, and adjusting his new prosthetic hand he laughed at his fellow prisoner's fate. "Or lack thereof."

* * *

"Now, I hope that solves the doubts about our founding that your government may have, Madame Lin." Benoit said as he ended reading a bunch of files. "Considering your recent addition to this project, I understand their (and your) doubts, but I must insist in that this is a project into humanity's benefit, not a country's." Benoit explained, putting emphasis onto his statement.

"My apologies if my questions were taken as an offense, Benoit." the French man's interlocutor spoke; a petite Chinese woman in her mid thirties with long, wavy black hair and sharp, angular features similar to the ones of an eagle or some other bird. The nose pointy and the chin and cheekbones sharp; vigilant eyes of a light grey were looking at Benoit with a glacial and indecipherable look. Niu Lin, head of China's own department in order to deal with magical threats; that's who this stern woman was. "But I only do as my country asks of me, as all of us do."

Silence took hold of the meeting. All sitting around a large table, the attendants moved only the necessary to take their glasses to drink from them or pass the pages of some of the dossiers that were resting in front of them. Unable to control his body in the same vein that the others could, Captain Black rubbed his palm against his bald head several times, a sign that he was really uncomfortable being here. For him, there was something very clear, these people were playing a game he wasn't accustomed to, and he hated it. The grand goal was common, but not the small ones. Black had the strange sensation that at the minimum opportunity, Benoit would drop that entire _'humanity's benefit, not a country's_ ' thing and run for his life.

"Seeing that this seems settled, and that the mask and Mr. Kasahara are locked, I would like to bring up something." a new voice joined the game. It belonged to a man of white, milky skin. His head was covered in brilliant and light blond hair that fell graciously in shift curls to the sides of his head until it reached his shoulders. Reddish brown eyes looked calmly from his face as he took the glass of water that corresponded to him and sipped from it slowly. He was quite young in comparison with the others, probably twenty three or twenty four. Always calm and collected over everything, Sergei Dragunov was to Russia what Joseph White was to the United States and Benoit Belpois to France, and as the Director had told Black, the Russian wasn't someone that liked to lose or be won over. "The good Captain addressed some 'complications' concerning the Chan family. An attack of a Level Three is not something we should look over."

"First of all, thank you for agreeing upon Kasahara's transfer from France, Benoit." Black thanked the French man. "And answering your question Mr. Dragunov; yes the Chans suffered an attack by magical forces a couple of days ago."

"It seems that the Chan family is rather attractive to magic," Takashi commented in a neutral tone. "Who was the attacker?"

"A possessed human named Preston Fisher." Black answered. "He was possessed by one of the Demon Sorcerers…"

"According to the information White provided," Niu spoke next. "Those are Level Four threats. Why do you label it as a Level Three then?"

"You have to understand that, while inhabiting a human body, each one of these creatures suffers a clear drawback in their abilities," Black explained to the Chinese woman. "That's the reason why he has been labeled just as a Level Three. Also, Tchang Zu is just the Demon of Thunder, and that isn't an ability as destructive as the ones from other demons."

"The man, the human part," Dragunov spoke. "Is he salvable?"

"Yes," Black answered. "Our expert is dealing with that problem as we speak. Once settled, the demon's sealed spiritual form will be brought here."

That seemed to please the four bureaucrats, albeit they didn't show it in their demeanor. _What are these people, machines? Man, at least Joseph is sincere about how things affect him…_ , Black thought before his body reassumed the tension that it had before speaking. _They ask and ask, and just sit there_. _I swear, I would like to see how one of these handles an Oni or a Demon or…_

"What about Niles Valmont?" Black was taken out of his thoughts by Benoit's voice. "Is he still at large?"

Black raised a confused eyebrow. "Valmont is not of our concern anymore. His complete operation is disassembled, his resources are lost and most important; he has no access to magic at all. According to Section 12, he is now a bus driver; he's nothing to worry about."

"And yet he was able to gain an Oni Mask years ago when he slipped behind your radar," Takashi pointed out. "If not for Chan's intervention, it could have been fatal. Letting someone like Valmont, rich or poor, to run free with all the knowledge and experience he has in regards to magic is something very risky."

"Yes, but…" Black started to say, but something in his mind told him to shut his mouth and wait. This wasn't his field; this was a place where favors and ambiguous words were used in exchange of bullets. One of Black's phones rang then, and he knew that if that one was the one to rang, then they had a problem.

"A minute, gentlemen." Black said while answering the call. "Black. Yes. Wait, where? In Mexico? Oh, well, I'll gave them the message, don't worry." Black hanged his phone and looked worrisomely to his interlocutors. "We may have a problem."

"What kind of problem?" Niu asked.

"We've received an alert of a new Level Three, this one in Mexico." Black explained. "I have my men on it as we speak."

"Clearly Jackie Chan again." Dragunov said with a bit of disdain. "Captain, I'm starting to feel like we are too dependent in the helping of a mere civilian. This Compound was built precisely to rescind of his services."

"Jackie is as competent as any of our agents; he counts with years of experience in dealing with this kind of threats and has aid of experts in magic, so there shouldn't be any problems." The Captain said to the Russian. "And don't worry; I'll look into Valmont's actual whereabouts and estate too." Black told them. "And in the first second he proves dangerous, you will have him here, in a cell and wrapped in a straitjacket if necessary."

* * *

 ** _San Francisco_**

"Achoo!" Thousands of miles away, separated by the ocean; Niles Valmont sneezed. Rubbing his nose, the former leader of the Dark Hand crime syndicate sighed annoyingly. _Great, and now I get a cold_ ; he though with sarcasm. _How much lower can you fall, Valmont?_

It couldn't be too much more, right? No, for Niles Valmont, for the man that had passed from practically untouchable and rich crime lord to common bus driver fighting with every inch of his body to gather enough money to pay his filthy apartment's rent and have enough left to buy food and drink beer in the spam of a couple of years; he had hit bottom and there wasn't any way out of it. Sometimes he looked back to the old days with nostalgia and to laugh at his current self. Back then, when he had everything and no one else dared to go against his word… those were the good times! He looked at his reflection and saw a winner, a man dressed in sharp that could kill you with his bare hands, or with the blade of his electrical sword! But now he looked at his reflection in the mirror and saw nothing but an everyman with the beard badly trimmed and the hair grassy and sometimes plain dirty; the muscles product of the trainers that his cash paid long gone, and with the fashion sense of an office worker. It could have been so humiliating and enraging… if Valmont hadn't accepted it long ago. For four long years he had kept himself in this mediocre life, repeating the same circle. Wake up at morning, take the subway to the bus station, drive his bus, take the subway back, have a drink if he could afford it, go home and to sleep; all with the nutritive feeding provided by the cheapest pre-cooked food he could find in between, of course. It was clearly not the best lifestyle for a man in his early forties, but Valmont didn't care.

That was probably the most remarkable thing about the mediocre man, he had stopped caring. Years ago, when he had first lost his fortune, he had tried everything to regain it, from little thieving to trying to hold control over a Shadowkhan tribe and roam the world as a Oni/crime lord-thing… but that had proved useless. Then he had tried finding a honest employment, but considering that every person with a decent offer had also the ability to access his criminal record, that also had proven useless… except with the bus offer. Maybe the guy was a Good Samaritan, or maybe he was insane, but Mr. Egg Shen, Valmont's new boss, had taken the man under his wing and given him an opportunity, an opportunity Valmont had accepted. Hell, by that point he could have accepted anything, even if it meant picking crap with his bare hands.

No, he didn't care about anything anymore. Not about his looks, not about what he ate, not about what he drank or what he worked at. Still, Valmont looked back to his old days as a crime lord with nostalgia. He had become one of those men that had been one of the big shots of football in the past and that now wasted his time looking old records of his best matches all over again, hadn't he? Well, it didn't matter. It didn't matter at all, not anymore.

 _I wonder if there is something opened over here at this hour_ , Valmont thought as he walked San Francisco's streets from the bus station to the nearest subway entry in the hopes of finding a bar of his liking, something that was heavily conditioned by how much you had to pay for a drink. Of course, you didn't know about it until you tried; so...

"Agh...!" Valmont practically exclaimed as he took half a pitcher of beer down his throat at once. _This is... a rather good beer for just two buckets_ , Valmont thought as he looked at the remaining yellowish liquid inside the pitcher. No, it wasn't a good beer for just two buckets, but Valmont kept repeating that to himself over and over again. He didn't even like beer, his tongue more accustomed to the taste of wine than anything else. But drinking a good wine in San Francisco was a lot harder (and a lot more expensive) than drinking a random beer in some random bar. Well, at least he could pass a peaceful...

"Big V?"

Oh, me and my big mouth!, Valmont thought internally. Turning around in the direction of the voice that had called him by that old nickname he saw the face of someone that he didn't like seeing. A reminder of the good days, all his failures wrapped in the form of one single person.

"Hello, Finn." Valmont greeted the man. The Irish-American was standing next to him, nothing much had changed in him in the time they haven't seen each other. The same red hair, the same relaxed demeanor... even the same clothing, taken straight out the seventies? Valmont didn't like this man, in fact; he doubted that he had never liked any of his previous enforcers. But even if Valmont had put as much contempt as possible in his words Finn didn't notice it, instead grinning at Valmont as if he had met an old friend that he hadn't seen in a long time.

"Big V!" the disco dressed man said. "Long time no see! How's it going?"

Damn, Valmont knew the man had good intentions but… how could he answer to that? Did he tell his old employee that he was still leaving in the same pathetic apartment that they had encountered him in four years ago? Did he tell him that he was drinking in that messy bar because he couldn't afford something better? Well, sincerity had never been Niles Valmont's style.

"I continue breathing; I suppose that's good enough." Valmont answered to Finn. Taking a few more sips from his drink he let his dry retort to sink in his interlocutor, who took a seat near him in the bar, laughed a little to the British man´s not-so-funny joke.

"Yeah, good one." Finn said to his former boss. "But man, never expected to see you here. Last time was a lot of time ago and you were all wacko with that half of the mask… but I suppose I can't talk there, got my own embarrassing experience with those. So, how're you Big V? Being somewhere interesting? Doing something new?"

Valmont looked sideways to Finn. Damn, why the hell was he so insisting into speaking? Why was EVERYONE so insistent into picking up a chat? Well, he supposed that nothing wrong could come from speaking a little. Maybe it would distract him better than the awful beer. "Never left San Francisco in all these years and I think that now I will be just 'V' from now on. But how are you, Finn? I find weird not seeing you with Ratso and Chow at your sides. Have you had a fight or something?"

"Me? A fight with Ratso and Chow?" Finn pealed in laughter. "No, no; we're fine, but we kinda couldn't maintain ourselves in the same place. Chow's in Oregon now, working in his family's business painting houses and Ratso is now working at a University called Miskatonic, or some weird name like that. We make a trip just the three of us every year! This year we're going to visit the Grand Canyon."

"Really?" Valmont asked, not paying pretty much attention to the last part, focusing mainly on the first one. "And how are they doing at that? And what about you?"

"They're doing fine," Finn answered. "I, in the other hand, got my hands in a little DJ business, so if you ever throw a party, call me and I'll send someone to rock you up! No, wait; that came out wrong… just take the target." Finn explained handing a target to Valmont, which the British man took into his pocket with little enthusiasm.

"I'll look into it." Valmont said. Man, this had to be some kind of bad joke. His three most useless workers, that were so pathetic that he had starting to suspect that they were anthropomorphic personifications of incompetence, were having more success in life than him. Him! He was supposed to be the genius! The man that had raised an empire from the dirt only with his mind and his father's money! He was supposed to be the one that could find something with just trying, not these… idiots!

Valmont finished his beer (god, it was such an horrible beer) and letting a pair of wrinkled dollars over the cracked good of the bar, he sat up from his seat. "Well Finn, it has been a lovely chat, but I have to go. My bed and a delicious piece of meat wrapped in plastic await me at home."

"Before you go, Big V…" Finn said, making Valmont stop. "I don't tell this to anyone, but considering for how long we've met… you know what my father used to tell me when I was nothing but a lad? He said 'Son, it's good to be sad, but you don't have to be a total dick about it'."

Valmont narrowed his eyes at Finn for a moment before turning around and leaving the bar without saying a word. The Irishman was left drinking his own glass alone, shaking his head. "Whatever, Big V…"

* * *

Now in the subway Valmont was starting to feel angry. Correction, he _was_ angry! Did just one of those pests offer him pity?! PITY?! To him?! One thing was having accepted that life had defeated you, but this was even more humiliating! Why always he? Why was him the one who had always to lose? _It doesn't matter_ , Valmont repeated in his thought like he had done so many times before, but this time it didn't work.

But it did matter, even if Valmont rejected that notion due to his very own pride. It had something akin to an ironical poetry to it, that just in order to maintain his previous pride, in order to hold in memory his life as a crime lord, Valmont had to disregard his own dignity. And in his pride, Valmont had forgotten something. True, he had sunken low, but when you hit bottom, there is only one way out, and that's up. Valmont had forgotten that, and if he had waited and listened to what Finn could have told him, he could have known that Chow had to beg in his knees to his family in order to return to the business; that Ratso had almost beaten the record of more hours staying awake in order to gain access to university again, and that Finn had to fight out of a swarm of creditors and notaries in order to gain his little dream.

But Valmont didn't want to think about the possibilities of the future, letting his rage and self-pity to make him focus in the possibilities of the past instead. What could have happened if he hadn't listened to the sugary promises about unthinkable riches of a talking statue? Could he still hold his empire, control the criminal underworld? Valmont knew that it was likely the case and that enraged him even more. _Damn all the magic, and the demons…_ , he thought with disdain. And yet again, something in the back of his head reminded him of the actual situation, and he was forced to repeat to himself that it didn't matter. If only he could get an opportunity, only a change of events that could set him in the right direction once again… But no, reminded Valmont to himself, that was something impossible for him.

"Mom, look! There is something out in the tunnel!" a child's voice took Valmont out of his internal rant against humanity in general. It belonged to a little brunette girl held by her mother's hand and that was joyfully pointing to the wagon's window, as if there was something outside aside of the green and red flashes produced by the lights of the security exits of the tunnels.

"Come now Lily, there is nothing outside." the mother tranquilized the daughter, or at least tried. The child continued to point outside, adding this time little jumps to the act.

"But mom, it's true! See, here it is again! Hello, Mr. Octopus!" the child, Lily, said waving her hand to the window.

"Lily, don't you see that it would be impossible for an… octopus…"

The mother fell silent, and so did Valmont, his anger being rapidly replaced by fear. In fact, so everyone that was in the train and was looking in the right direction felt how their tongues suddenly stopped and their bodies tensed up, unable to made any movement. There was, indeed, something outside. Valmont had met beings that defied human belief before, even shared his body with one of them, but this one was something else. Inside him, a voice shrieked " _Run for your life, you fool!_ "; but his legs weren't in the mood for obeying or running either. There was, indeed, something outside.

At the side of the subway train and looking across the wagon's windows with too many eyes of different colors and sizes, was something that could only be described as a massive mass of slime of a mix of amber and purple, with no default form. From here and there in its body shot some long, slippery tentacles that ended in sharp ends and that the creature used to crawl its way in the tunnel. Bigger than the train itself, the creature had several mouths of circular form full of three lines of teeth each, or at least did when its form let the mouths to be seen. The thing was running, or more precisely crawling very fast, side by side with the subway train, using its tentacles to give propulsion to its massive body.

The creature took some distance and, without prior notice it charged against the train, making it derail and fall sonorously in the tunnel. The lights fell off and the passengers that hadn't yet seen the creature screamed both in surprise and fear. Fighting against his body's necessity to fain to avoid pain, Valmont took one of his hands to his hurting head. Blood colored it in red.

The creature torn the wagon apart and, as if they were mere candies, it started to pick passenger after passenger and eat them alive. The sound of crushing bones and torn meat was everything Valmont could hear, while a strange yet familiar odor was starting to impregnate the air.

The familiar stench that comes when someone loses control of his sphincters as their flesh is ripped from them.

Valmont felt how something gripped him around his waist, and in seconds he was in the air, sustained by one of the creature's tentacles and looking at the thing's eyes. Valmont had seen hatred, anger and pure malice before, be it in the eyes of men or in the ones of demons, wizards or his own reflection. But from this thing, what Valmont saw in this thing's eyes was just the desire of eating. But not one that came from hunger, but one that came from something different. At first Valmont tried to find the same sadistic glint that he had found in either Shendu or his siblings' eyes, but that wasn't present there. The creature just looked at him with contempt; not even as regarding him as nutritive food, just as if he was a small biscuit or something that was in the way. There was no reason in those eyes.

" _Shoggoth! Shoggoth!_ " the creature shrieked, its voice similar to the sound that a glass makes when it breaks against the hot pavement in summer accompanied by the pained howl of a wolf wounded by a bullet eaten away by oxide.

And the next that Valmont knew, was darkness.

* * *

 ** _Mexico_**

"Why must we always travel by plane?" Uncle complained as he, Jackie, Gutierrez and a whole platoon of agents of Section 13 descended from a plane that was probably property of the organization and landed their feet in Mexican territory.

"Because, Uncle" Jackie answered as he dragged the old man's luggage out of the plane as best as he could, "planes are the fastest and safest way to travel. And this one is Section 13's, you can't complain about food, or seats."

"That's the problem." Uncle said as he waited for Jackie to descend the plane's stairs. "Seats were too comfortable! Made Uncle relax and sleep! Uncle needs all his senses sharp in order to detect forces of evil lurking in this country! The Earth Demon could be just waiting at the street's corner!"

"He just likes to complain, doesn't he?" Gutierrez asked while he and his men checked out the weapons they had carried with them in the plane. Jackie had to admit that they had brought literally a small arsenal to the place. It was true that they were hunting a demon, but… during the trip from San Francisco he had heard them talking about someone, probably the man that had escaped from prison once possessed by Dai Gui. Jackie had heard some of the agents hoping that it wasn't him, but Jackie didn't know why. Well, he supposed that the answers could come to him eventually.

As for now, Jackie just shrugged to the agent's commentary. "You get accustomed to it, don't worry." the archeologist looked around the airport until he found the person he was looking for. "Look, El Toro is already here, waiting for us."

The luchadore stood silently, mask contrasting with the formal suit he usually wore when not expecting and immediate fight, albeit Jackie knew that he was wearing his usual outfit under that one. He looked a little older than the last time they had seen each other, but that could be applied to Jackie too. Four years don't pass like nothing after all.

"El Toro!" Jackie said, handling the luggage to one of the agents and greeting his old friend, who answered with one of his usual bear hugs. "Ugh… can't breathe…"

"My apologies, amigo mio." El Toro spoke calmly, letting Jackie down. "It's good to have you here. I'm sorry to have to disturb you, but the situation seemed… far too magical to have the local authorities deal with it alone."

"That's why we are here." Jackie said, pointing to ll the presents. "All of us. El Toro, this Gutierrez, the agent of Section 13 in charge of this operation. Gutierrez, this is…"

"El Toro Fuerte." the agent said as he stretched the man's hand. "Your fame preceeds you."

"Thank you." El Toro answered. "Now, if we could move, it would be good if you know to whom we are dealing with."

"Aiyah! We know with whom we are dealing!" Uncle yelled. "Earth Demon is old foe of us!"

"Señor Uncle, with all due respect…" El Toro began to say, but was interrupted by Gutierrez.

"We read the information about the break in Topo Chico." the agent said. "Is Pedro Guerra, isn't it?"

"Who's Pedro Guerra?" Jackie asked, a little surprised by the grim look that had taken over El Toro's look.

The luchadore looked over Jackie with a somber look in his eyes. "A monster, amigo." El Toro answered. "Pedro Guerra is a Diablo."

* * *

Ricardo Santana was a man of priorities, and in his life of long fifty seven years the maximum priority had always been money. Neither women nor alcohol, or all the pleasures in this earthly world... none of them were as important as the fortune he had built upon his little drug empire. It didn't matter who he had to kill and how many lives he must ruin to maintain his wealth.

But not everything were roses in Santana's life. Due to his obsession with money, Santana had to employ rather unpleasant people in the past, the worst of them all being Pedro Guerra. The hit-man had proved very useful in the past, being basically a walking and talking weapon; but like with everything else it had cone a time in which he had been of no more use.

And so Santana and the other leaders of cartels had made so that Guerra ended in prison. And not some random prison lost to memory, but Topo Chico. And he had escaped. Escaped! How had been that possible? Had any other cartel provided him with the means to escape? Men, dynamite? No, there was a clear pact between the gangs to let him rot and die into that place forgotten by God, and Santana knew that no one would be as stupid as letting Guerra out. Then how on Earth did he...?

A powerful tremor shook Santana's office, making some of the books he had just for show to fall to the floor. Taking a gunshot he hid under his desk almost by reflex, he pointed it to gate. Something in his gut was telling him that there was something wrong coming for him.

"An earthquake, how is that possible?" Santana asked aloud, but his only answer was yet another tremor and the sound of his communicator.

"Rodriguez! What the hell is going on outside?!" Santana screamed to the device.

"Patron!" a voice answered from the communicator. "It's Guerra! He is attacking, he is..."

 _What? So soon?_ , Santana thought. "How many men has with him?"

"T-Two..." Rodriguez answered. "But you don't understand, patron, he isn't..."

The conversation ended with the sound of shot's and Rodriguez's scream, followed immediately by another tremor. Santana heard even more screams and shots behind his office's door, followed by more tremors, each time more and more violent, more and more powerful. They were coming near.

Santana pointed his shotgun to the entrance, waiting for any kind of attack. In the moment someone, it didn't matter who, opened the door, he was going to fill his body with lead until the metal detectors of the airports in the other side of the planet were able to detect it. But of course, Santana wasn't expecting that, instead of appearing right from the door, the attack came right under his feet. The floor opened under him, creating a hole where there should have been stone. Santana felt how gravity made its work and pulled him inside the hole, just for it to close itself midway, trapping and immobilizing the man from the waist down. Unable to move his legs, Santana tightened his grip around the gunshot and continued to point the weapon to the door. If he knew Guerra, and he sadly did, the small, bulky man would appear right from the door. Theatrics, he called it; the key to inspire fear in your target it's not in the quantity of weapons you carry, or the men you have at your back, but in the theatrics. Theatrics are everything.

The door went out of its hinges, and Santana's first instinct was to deliver the whole load of bullets of the gunshot at whatever was behind. When the weapon got out of bullets, Santana looked at the target of his wrath just to see how a pillar of stone had been lifted between him and the entrance. From behind the pillar, one step and then another, emerged the form of Pedro Guerra, one of Santana's own cigar from the Habana in the mouth, smoke pouring from his nostrils. Santana looked enraged at how one of his most expensive cigars was being smoked by this tasteless assassin, but he didn't say a thing.

The drug dealer let the gunshot to slip from his hands into the floor. After all, it was useless now, and looked at how other two men appeared from the door. Santana recognized them, mainly de to the long scar that adorned the face of the older of the two. The Álvarez brothers, Lorenzo and Luis; children of a famous plastic surgeon that had become, with the pass of the years, into Guerra's personal henchmen and cleaners. They must had escaped with him from Topo Chico…

"I had to admit, Ricardo;" the small man said as he took another puff from the cigar. "Your house is pretty neat. How many rooms has this one? Fifty, seventy? I bet it's not less than fifty."

"Pedro, old friend, let me explain…" Santana started to say, fear present in his voice. Great, so now Guerra had crazy powers. That was exactly what he needed, a maniac with superpowers.

"There is nothing here to explain, you backstabber." Guerra answered, walking to Santana's desk and looking for a little button that he had knew about when employed by the drug dealer. "You wanted me out of the picture, and you put me out. But man, not even paying me?" Guerra asked sarcastically as he pressed the button and a door to a little secret room opened behind one of the bookshelves. The secret room was full of packs of dollars and over a little table, a pack of twelve gold ingots rested peacefully.

"Madre del amor hermoso…" Luis said as his eyes glowed in greed. Screw if the boss had developed geokinesis or whatever, they had gold! "You seeing that, hermano?"

"I have eyes, Luis." Lorenzo answered, the same greedy glint that adorned his little brother's eyes adorning his. "And I can see it perfectly."

"Never putting faith in the banks, eh Santana? Go and fetch yourselves," Guerra told the Álvarez brothers as he turned again to the drug dealer. "I have some words to have with my former employer."

Two pieces of earth shot from the floor to Guerra's hands, and Santana could appreciate that they were shaped in the form of two long, sharp and curved knives; Guerra's favorite hand to hand weapons. "Pedro, please; you have to understand… you weren't useful anymore! You were becoming too violent, too dangerous to let free! That's the reason we had to put you there! Don't you understand? Nothing personal, just…"

"Just a good deal, I know." Guerra spoke. "Speaking of deals, made a very good one during the last days in the prison, you know? Met a funny guy named Dai Gui; eccentric guy, always speaking in third person about himself…" Guerra put one of the stone-knives in the floor and punched the ground creating little waves that then evolved into spikes and then crumbled into dust. Santana looked at Guerra's eyes and saw how they became of a burning red. No sclera, no pupil… just red. "He's inside me now, Santana. Made me stronger, made me able to move the ground under my feet and craft it as I like. He told me that, if I handled myself to him, he could grant me any wish. But my only wish is revenge from you and the other leaders of the cartels, Santana." Guerra took the stone-knife again. "So in the moment I have killed all of you, and let those two brothers with enough money that they don't have to move a finger for the rest of their lives; I'll gladly let my body to him to do whatever he wants with this pathetic country of ours."

A firm movement of the hand, and Santana's arms were immobilized and his clothes ripped. Guerra started to nail the edge of the knife into Santana's chest, tracing an horizontal line over it from where blood started to pour in small quantity. "But before I kill you, I'm going to remind each one of you why I was the one you send after the people you wanted dead." Then Guerra did the same movement in a vertical direction, making a cross over the man's chest. "En nombre del Padre, del Hijo y el Espíritu Santo…" Guerra started to cut one of Santana's arms over the elbow, clearly aiming to cut the arm in two. The screams of pain of Santana invaded the room as Guerra tortured him, and the Álvarez brothers were taking the gold that had costed hima lifetime to had there.

"Amen."

* * *

 ** _Three hours later_**

After their meeting with El Toro at the airport, Gutierrez had taken them into one of the safe houses that the organization had across the globe. This one wasn't very ostentatious, a table to hold all the paperwork Gutierrez had brought with him and a very outdated projector were the only things to gather attention; but Jackie supposed that was the norm when you were in another country trying to capture a demon with a bunch of men that looked right out of a Clancy Brown movie, a luchadore that never removed his mask no matter what, and his elderly Uncle who was also a chi wizard. Over the past hours since their arrival and accommodation in the safe house, Gutierrez had been presenting them with all the information he could provide about Pedro Guerra.

Each one of the images that Gutierrez and the other agents presented in front of Jackie was even more terrible than the previous one. The one they were seeing right now depicted the corpse of a woman hanging upside down from her feet, her head resting right under the body, and her belly cut open. A part of Jackie was grateful that Jade was now miles away, in probably the safest place of the planet. When presented with the fact that the Demon Sorcerers could be free and possessing humans, the archeologist had thought that mostly, it would be cases like Preston's, innocent and normal people from which the demons would take control to do their bidding, much like how Shendu had used him to get to the Book of Ages. But he hadn't been expecting… this.

This Guerra was an insane man, and a dangerous one at that. Apparently he had quite the bad reputation in all Mexico for being the preferred assassin of the drug cartels during a bunch of years, before they had made so he ended inside Topo Chico. According to Gutierrez, there had been a bunch of assassination attempts against Guerra, but all of them frustrated by the a himself or his associates, a pair of lapdogs called Lorenzo and Luis Álvarez. Jackie's stomach revolted at the thought of having a psychopath like that with the power of a demon at his disposal.

"Guerra is a very disturbed individual," Gutierrez continued to explain. "He seems obsessed with Christian symbolism and perversions of their rites; usually craving their sacred symbols in the flesh of his victims. Crosses, psalms, all of that. No one knows exactly why he does it, but the most believed explanation is that he does it for fun." The word agent Gutierrez was searching for was theatrics, but he couldn't know about Guerra's real reason for doing that.

Uncle shook his head in sorrow; clearly disapproving the use that madman gave to a religion. He was not Christian, but he could understand that the use of any religion in the name of evil was something despicable. Chi Master Fong had told him that the original use of chi magic was to be of help to healers and spiritual leaders; a purpose that had been twisted by the dark. From healing spells had come the ones to spread disease, from the chasms that protected humankind from demons the ways of harming them.

"Do we know if Dai Gui is controlling him in some way?" Jackie asked, getting to the point. "Aiming for something in particular?"

"Doesn't seem very likely," Gutierrez continued. "Since Guerra's escape from Topo Chico he seems to have been lying low. I don't know how a demon works, but that doesn't seem very demon-y to me, unless you have a word about it, Mr. Chan." Gutierrez addressed Uncle.

Uncle shook his head. "This is a very bad situation. Demon possessing human by force is very bad news, but this… this could be worse. This could be demon working with human."

"Demon working with human? What does that mean?" Gutierrez inquired, but Uncle ignored him and taking a pen and approaching one of the room's walls, he started to draw the guise of a man in it.

"When Demon possesses normal human, there is conflict between the two consciences as they fight for the body's dominance, and with time, the demon is normally the one to come on top" Uncle used the pen to draw a serpentine thing entering the human body and overwriting the host's soul. "But there are cases in which Demon finds people with dark desires in their souls." Uncle explained as he painted another humanoid figure, this one already complete dark. "This people have their chi darkened, and hold some sort of compatibility with forces of darkness. Demon finds them and makes an offer. I will give you treasure or power… just give me your body. If human accepts and the desire is fulfilled, Demon and human will became two balanced existences inside the body, impossible from being separated and… and Demon could gain more strength from the merge."

Jackie opened his eyes wide. "Dai Gui can be even stronger? Uncle, that thing could create earthquakes… ow!"

"Nephew does not let Uncle finish his explanation!" Uncle yelled after slapping his nephew. "There is still hope. If Demon is exorcized before host has used his new powers to accomplish his desire, then the deal can be undone, and Demon won't get stronger!" Uncle looked at all the men surrounding him. "There is, Uncle has ended explanation!"

"Guerra isn't a very complicated man," Gutierrez explained. "But that only makes it harsher to find him, I suppose." Gutierrez seemed thoughtful for a moment before directing to his men. "Search in the local police radio for news talking about strange earth movements or something out of the common! If that monster is even taking a shit, I want to know!"

Uncle, meanwhile, took a map of the city and started to cast chi spells over it, trying to locale a thread of dark chi over the place. That left Jackie time to do something that had wanting to do for almost three hours: talk with El Toro. While the archeologist enjoyed and welcomed the luchadore's company, his old friend seemed down, and there was no real reason for him to be there, except for helping, which Jackie was glad for, but… something was wrong with this picture, and that was because someone was missing from it.

"El Toro?" Jackie asked his friend.

"Yeas, Jackie?" the luchadore looked at him with a rather somber; or someone could have said depressed, look.

"Where is Paco?"

The question hit El Toro like a train. No, the appropriate comparison would be something similar to a space station dropping from the stratosphere and hitting him at maximum speed, enveloped in flames. Jackie saw a varied range of emotions pass over El Toro's face. First surprise, then remorse, then worry, then anger, and then sadness, with even more worry mixed with all the previous emotions.

"Paco, he… he's it not here." the luchadore answered. "We should concentrate in Guerra, instead of…"

"I can see that, EL Tor." Jackie answered, interrupting him. "That boy is never far away from you, and you seem constantly preoccupied. Tell me, has something…"

"Aiyah! Dark chi, dark chi everywhere!" Uncle yelled then, interrupting the talk of the two men. All the presents gathered around the map Uncle was using, and looked at the spot the Chinese elder was pointing to. It depicted a campaign in the outskirts of the city, far enough that anything built within it could be as big as it could without gathering attention. To Jackie, it seemed like a mansion. Gutierrez flipped through some files and papers.

"Holy crap, that's Ricardo Santana's home," Gutierrez said between his teeth. "Smith, get me something about that man and his connections with Guerra, now!"

Smith, a man around Gutierrez's age that never was two meters away from his laptop, did as ordered. "Well, ain't it interesting? Apparently Santana employed Guerra in the past…"

"Everyone knows that," Gutierrez answered.

"Let me finish," Smith said. "There ain't any proof, but there's a rumor saying that Santana and other capos put Guerra behind bars by themselves. Bribed a lot of people to make sure he ended in top Chico."

Jackie was able to piece the things together by himself. "Revenge. Guerra wants revenge. Dai Gui must have offered him the means to gain that, and he accepted."

"The mansion is too far from the city to an incident to be detected." Gutierrez explained. "Even if it's an earthquake…"

"We must travel fast then," Uncle said in a worried tone. "Must separate Dai Gui from Guerra before the assassin fulfils his revenge and the deal is fulfilled. Quick, Jackie, grab Uncle's ingredients and the chi-cage for demon's spirit. Masked-man, help Jackie to protect chi-cage and ingredients. Gutierrez! Bring car so Uncle can go defeat the Earth Demon! Go! GO! GO!"

The agents, Jackie and El Toro started to move, preparing everything to go. At the middle of the preparations, Smith stopped what he was doing and lanced back at Uncle. _Did we just take orders from an old man?_

Meanwhile everyone prepared, Jackie glanced one last time towards El Toro. Their conversation would have to wait until Dai Gui and Guerra had been dealt with.

* * *

 ** _Santana's mansion_**

"Please, Pedro… I beg you, no more, please… Please, let me die already." Santana's weak voice echoed through his office.

In the spam of mere hours Santana had been stripped of almost the entirety of the skin that covered the upper part of his body, leaving only the red and bloody mass of his muscles at the touch of the air. In them, Guerra had craved some numbers, clearly indicating some of the Bible's verses.

Guerra, meanwhile, was paying little attention to the man's pleas, as he spoke with the Álvarez brothers using Santana's own communicator.

"Have you gathered all the surviving men, Lorenzo?" Guerra asked in the communicator.

"Yes boss." came Lorenzo's voice. "In the moment we gave them the money we take from Santana's vault they cheered your name. They seem pretty glad we didn't kill them, too."

"Good." Guerra answered. "And the gold?"

"Luis has it and he's going far, as you said."

"Excellent," Guerra said, smirking. "Get the men into position and wait for me there, understood? Then, when I arrive you go with your brother and I don't want to see neither of you two in this country again. Go to Italy, or the Caribean, or some place in the other face of the planet."

"Boss, we spoke about this before." Lorenzo said. "It would be better if we stick out together."

Guerra clenched his fist and felt Dai Gui's power twirling inside him. He knew what the demon wanted to do to this country once their deal was completed. He didn't want for the two brothers to be taken in the middle of it. "And I told you that I will manage with those men and my powers. Have you seen what I can do now, burro?"

Guerra could hear Lorenzo sighing at the other side of the communicator. Lorenzo had always been sharper than Luis, and that was showing now. After some tense minutes of no response, Lorenzo spoke again in the communicator. "Fine, boss. We'll do as you say. But if things get worse, don't complain." And with that sentence, the call ended.

"Ah... see, Santana?" Guerra asked aloud. "That's how you get loyal men around you. Trust, not just money."

"Pedro, for the love of God..." Santana got silenced with a punch to the jaw.

"Don't take the name of the Lord in vain!" Guerra spoke loudly.

 _All those years killing people had taken its tool even on you_ , Santana thought to himself. _You have started to believe your own theatrics, idiot. Or maybe you picked it up in prison_.

Guerra let Santana to bleed to death there, restrained by the earth and walked to the office's balcony. Outside, he could see how Lorenzo was taking the men to the point they had talked about, just as they had agreed to. Guerra closed his eyes and focused in his own mind. _Are you sure he will come?_ , he thought.

 _Yes, he will come, no doubt about that_. Dai Gui spoke inside his mind _. Jackie Chan always comes to foil demon kind's plans._

 _I hope you are right, compandre_ , Guerra thought. _If not, I would have been just wasting my time_.

 _Even Dai Gui is versed enough in magic to feel the presence of good chi_ , the demon said inside Guerra's head. _They are coming. Be ready and strike the wizard first, otherwise you will lose me and my power forever_. _And without Dai Gui, no revenge for you_.

With that, Dai Gui retired himself to a corner in Guerra's mind and let the hit-man to his own. Problems and mishaps, always problems and mishaps... Guerra breathed deeply and waited for his new adversaries to come to him. He had just the perfect surprise for them.

"El Señor es mi pastor, nada me falta..."

* * *

Jackie was feeling nervous for the first time in too many years. Even if he had dedicated his time to the pursue of strange relics around the globe, many of them surrounded by traps let there by the aboriginal people that populated the place; he had forgotten what was to be part of a full military operation. It felt weird, but also kind of nostalgic.

They were waiting outside the mansion of Ricardo Santana, a pretty infamous leader of a drug cartel and one of Guerra's former employers. This place had been designed to be a little fortress, with tall walls surrounding the mansion and an enormous garden in front of the gate, clearly thought to be a shooting gallery. Of course, Jackie supposed that snipers and the like couldn't do a thing when the attacker could just create a tunnel with his bare hands and sneak into their backs. Jackie remembered clearly his previous experiences related to Dai Gui, especially the fact that if not for the Armor of the Gods he could have lost his encounter with the demon; and the sensation of having his chi inside his body. Dai Gui may not be as dangerous as Shendu, but he wasn't as impulsive as Tchang Zu either, and that combined with the fact that a murderer had access to his powers make the archeologist worry about this.

Gutierrez had made his men scatter around the mansion, taking strategic spots in order to attack from different flanks. None of them knew how many men were inside, but at least they were expecting Guerra and the Álvarez brothers. Covered by Gutierrez, Jackie was maintaining himself near Uncle, holding a large paper bag containing the old man's ingredients and an elongated box that Uncle had enchanted in order to hold the Earth Demon's spiritual form inside.

"Everyone ready?" Gutierrez asked via a walky talky. His teammates answered with an affirmation, and Gutierrez looked back at Jackie and Uncle, expecting the same answer, but then his face contorted into an estrange expression of surprise. "Where is El Toro?"

"He said that he needed, eh, time." Jackie answered, pointing with his head to a bush behind them.

"Oh! Oh… well, just make sure that he makes it in less than five minutes, because… wait a second, Smith, what's going on?" Gutierrez asked in his walky talky.

"The luchadore was lying, sir." Smith's voice came from the device. "He's in the courtyard. Entering the mansion in this very same moment.

"What?!" Gutierrez, Jackie and even Uncle asked at the same time. The agent rubbed his temples. "Move in, now! Secure the entrance and don't let that man do anything stupid, you all hear me?"

"Yes, sir!" came the rest of the agents' response.

"Mr. Chan and Mr. Chan," Gutierrez addressed the other two men. "Do you know what this is all about?"

"No idea, agent, really." Jackie answered. He knew that there was something troubling El Toro from the moment he had spoke with him in the safe house, but no that it would made him fall into this stupidity.

"Aiyah! Masked-man is not opponent for Earth Demon! We must seal it now!"

Jackie gripped the paper bag and he and Uncle followed Gutierrez inside the mansion. Something inside of his head told him that these kind of militaristic operations were not his thing; that he wasn't meant to be there. But he silenced them with a shook of the head. If he could have wanted to forget about this kind of life, he could have done it long time ago.

Inside the mansion, having arrived sooner than Jackie and the others; a teenage of seventeen, armed with an old handgun full of bullets, walked confident and silently into the halls of the mansion, heading directly to Santana's office, where he supposed Guerra would be. The teen heard footsteps behind him, and taking cover over a corner he waited until the person he had heard appeared right into his field of view. Upon realizing who he was, the teen lowered the handgun and exited his cover position.

"What are you doing here, El Toro?"

"I came here to stop you, Paco." answered the luchadore.

Yes, it really was Paco. But he wasn't the same boy that followed El Toro to everywhere he went, always cheering up after the luchadore. In a very similar way way it had happened with Jade, where once was a little boy now stood a teen that was almost as tall as El Toro, if not remotely as bulky as the luchadore was. His hair had been maintained in a very similar vein than in his childhood, but his clothes were now composed of a pair of jeans and a shirt under an opened jacket.

"For wanting to stop me, you told me exactly where Guerra is." Paco replied, putting the gun away.

"What I didn't tell you is that he's possessed by a demon!" El Toro yelled. "You don't stand a chance!"

Paco looked sideways and smirked. "Is that so? Well, that's just ironic..." He directed himself to El Toro once again. "I can handle this alone, El Toro."

"Paco, please." El Toro begged. "Jackie is here, he will deal with Guerra and..."

"And?" Paco mocked. "And put that monster inside a prison again? No, that man's only way out of this place is with a bullet inside his head!"

"Paco, I know that you have suffered," El Toro said in a pleading tone. "This isn't the luchadore way."

"And what would that be?" Paco asked. "Fighting in a ring, dressed like a reject of some comic book?"

"Paco I…" El Toro began to say with regret. "I shouldn't have told you. Never."

"No, El Toro." Paco said. "You should have told me earlier."

A tremor ran then through the whole structure, interrupting the two men's conversation and making some dust to fall over their heads. After a few seconds, the walls started to generate cracks in themselves and the whole house started to tremble. Both Paco and El Toro looked disoriented around, trying to find an explanation. It came in the form of a simple word that left El Toro's mouth once he figured what was really happening in that mansion.

"Guerra…"

* * *

Jackie and Gutierrez had escorted Uncle to Santana's office with the maximum speed they were capable of. When they arrived at the place Jackie was glad that he had eaten so little for breakfast. The body of Santana continued where Guerra had left it, and its sight didn't please Jackie in the slightest. Uncle, meanwhile, making a show of that strange serenity he could master even in a war zone, was chanting and blowing his dried blowfish in the room.

"Evil chi was at work here." the Chinese elder said. "Very strong and recent presence… possessed human has been here very little time ago."

Jackie felt something in his feet, a little trembling or more precisely a vibration. "Have your men located El Toro yet?"

"They are at it, Mr. Chan." Gutierrez answered. "So, is Guerra still in the house, or…"

"Demon still in the building, yes." Uncle spoke as he knelt and touched the floor. "Deep below… underground."

Uncle's eyes widened in horror at the words he had just spoken. The vibration Jackie had been feeling for a while evolved into a full-fledged tremor, and the gaze of both Chans met for a moment, both of them understanding what was really happening, why they were the only ones in the enormous house.

None of them had time to yell something like 'it's a trap', or something similar, because then the floor opened under their feet as an earthquake shook the whole mansion, the earth roaring like a beast as it opened like the maws of the Beast of legend and started to devour the whole place. Jackie quickly found himself losing his center of gravity as the floor under him cracked in a million pieces.

And he fell. Fell to nothing but darkness and debris, the dust in the air making difficult to breathe. When Jackie opened his eyes, he noted how Uncle was between his arms, a motion born of the instinct of protecting the old man. There was little light left, and no matter where he tried to look at; neither Gutierrez, El Toro, neither any of the other agents were in sight.

"Jackie Chan, I presume?" a voice gained Jackie's attention. "I imagined you taller."

Looking up to the only spot from where light still poured into the cavern like he had been trapped in, Jackie met gazes with Pedro Guerra. The assassin was standing there, dressed in the same shirt and trousers he had sneaked out of a shop the day of his escape, looking down at Jackie. The light of the sun appeared right behind him and gave the killer a divine appearance, even if Jackie Knew that there was nothing divine about him. This time, in contraposition with so many times before, there was no offer of negotiation from Jackie. Not with this man, not with all the bodies behind him.

"I suppose you have nothing to tell me," Guerra spoke. "But you would get in my way, that old man of yours would try to get Dai Gui out of me, and I have a couple or more guys to kill using his powers; so you all can spend your final moments here, Chan…" Guerra moved his hands and the hole started to close, the light dying out as it did so.

"Underground."

* * *

 **Author's Note: Tan-Tan-Taaaan! (dramatic sound). Hello there, readers. Hope you enjoyed this one, because it was really hard to write. While I had exactly the ideas for the next chapters and how they are going to develop, writing this one was hard, mainly because it's a transition chapter that ends with a cliffhanger and because I had to make a proper order with the scene with Valmont and the Shoggoth… "Did Valmont die?", you ask. Probably. Since the moment I started this story, I wanted to use Lovecraftian horror in Valmot. It just feels like a natural progression, you know? From crime lord to smuggler, then to normal person with an Oni Mask in season four to a mere bus driver in five; now he ends his life as a miserable man, in a Shoggoth's stomach.**

 **As for Guerra, you have met what people call "men that make the devil look like an angel". At first I wasn't going to play him like that, but then I decided to use him in order to give Paco some sort of character arc… that will get really serious during and at the end of the next chapter.**

 **Oh, and if someone has doubts with the Levels that Black and the others use as measurement, then:**

 **Level One: People with access to magic, but not magical by themselves, like Chang, Valmont or Daolong Wong in the present.**

 **Level Two: Wizards, like Uncle, Tohru or Daolong Wong in the past.**

 **Level Three: People with extreme and unique magical abilities, like Origami, humans with demon-chi or an animal with a talisman power.**

 **Level Four: Objects or entities that suppose a threat to the human species as a whole, like the Demon Sorcerers or Tarakudo's mask.**

 **Having said that, hope you like the story so far and leave a review if you feel like it. Good bye, and until next time!**


	5. Devils Deals Devilish Deals!

**Disclaimer: I don't own Jackie Chan Adventures; JCA and all its characters are the property of Phil Weinstein, Frank Squillace and Jackie Chan himself.**

 **Author Notes: Here comes number five. I think I'm pretty proud about this one, even if it's going to be the only chapter of the story with almost nothing about the Mythos in it, being just pure JCA. Brace yourselves, here comes a game changer! As always, see the end of the chapter for more notes.**

* * *

Jackie Chan Adventures

Out of the Corner of the Eye

Chapter five

Devils. Deals. Devilish Deals!

* * *

 **From the journals of Marcus Malone. Fifth entry. April of 1946**

I think that I will be able to put it in this entry, basically because I had taken an entire bottle of whisky down my throat. I think that we left it when the boys and I where beneath Berlin. Actually, I doubt that it really was Berlin, because those tunnels and halls were too... long, to be just under Berlin. The albino guided us and after a while (I don't remember if it were hours or days) we ended into an enormous, circular chamber that was decorated with statues that looked like the result of the affair between monstrous squids and other animals, resulting in a complete set of depictions of abominations. Thanks to the book I was able to recognize some of them. Cthulhu, Hastur, Abhoth, Glaaki, Tsathoggua... and other beings I wasn't able to identify. It was a temple; the Nazis had found a temple! At first all of us marveled, thinking that we had made the discovery of the century! Then it came. Until that point we all believed that what the Necronomicon told us were myths. Enlightening myths, but myths after all. This was... imagine you are reading that segment of the Bible depicting the battle for Jericho and then one of the trumpeters appears and blows the damn instrument in your face.

A huge, oval-shaped barrel creature with starfish-like appendages at both ends had appeared in the center of the place. It was way bigger than any of us. The top appendage was a head adorned with five eyes, five eating tubes, and a set of cilia that was there for 'seeing' (I don't know how that worked, but it did). The bottom appendage was five-limbed and was used for walking. The being also had five leathery, fan-like retractable wings and five sets of branching tentacles that sprouted from their torsos. Both its tentacles and the slits housing its folded wings were spaced at regular intervals about its body. Now I know that it was something called 'Elder Thing', but then I could just stare in horror at it. You can imagine what followed.

Roger was the first one to fall; the thing ripped him in two. Ethan had it worse, the being lifted him up, impaled him with one of its tentacles and drained him, reduced him to a dried corpse. Conner... Conner just got splattered against the floor, like one of those bubble gums against the concrete. And I... I survived. Probably because I had the book with me, tightly against the chest as I trembled like a coward and closed my eyes like a scared child. The albino was behind me, smiling tranquilly as he slipped a cigarette between his lips. When the macabre show had ended he got near my ear and whispered into it while the creature drafted away, to the deepest parts of the temple once again. The albino, he said, "These are your first steps."

I miss my friends...

* * *

 ** _Honolulu_**

Wearing nothing but a pair of trunks, Jackie was enjoying a cocktail inside the emptied half of a coconut while reclined in a deck chair. In the beach of beautiful Honolulu, he was enjoying himself as Uncle, Tohru and Jade played by the ocean. Now, something was missing in this perfect image...

"Hi there, Tiger." Viper said as she appeared out of thin air, dressed in a rather provocative bikini. She sat into a deck chair at Jackie's right and winked at him seductively. "Care to share a bit of that fruit with a thirsty woman?"

Jackie passed the coconut to Viper, and she drank from it. A drop of the cocktail dropped from her lips and fell into her bust and moved down, travelling across her body until the bottom. The archeologist was clearly enjoying the show.

"And here I thought we have nothing in common, Chan." a reptilian voice called him. "Well, life has surprises for you even after four and a half millennia of existence."

Turning around, Jackie was greeted with the visage of Shendu; the Fire Demon sitting in his own deck chair, made it so it could hold his massive form. However, Jackie didn't seem troubled in the slightest by the presence of his old, mighty foe.

"Shendu!" Jackie said as if the humanoid dragon was nothing but a welcomed visit of an old friend. "Glad you came! Do you want a cocktail?"

"No Chan, listen..." Shendu started to say, but before he could finish his sentence a coconut filled with liquor appeared right in his hands, in the right size to be of the demon's liking. Shendu looked at the fruit with not a hint of amusement. Then the old dragon sighed and took a pair of sips from the drink. "What is wrong with human dreams?"

"Dream?" Jackie asked, smiling quite stupidly. "This is not a dream! We're in Honolulu, in vacation! Have a drink, bring your family, and build a sand-castle!"

Shendu took another sip from the coconut and looked slightly exasperated at Jackie. "No, this is a dream, and you are unconscious due to a fight with one of my siblings. I was planning to contact you sooner, but the presence of that wizard you have as an uncle made it difficult. He could have sensed me." Shendu reclined in his deck chair. "But if you don't wake up now, you will probably die."

"Shendu, Shendu..." Jackie said in a relaxed tone. "How is that I'm going to die if I'm waiting an hour before swimming?"

Shendu's eyes flared with anger. "Listen now Chan. I need you alive, and for that I need you awake. I'm growing tired of this ridiculous, paltry dream, and none of us has much spare time to lose!" Shendu breathed deeply. "Now, WAKE UP!" the Fire Demon roared as a torrent of flames erupted from his mouth and struck Jackie, who watched terrified how her perfect vacation in Honolulu melted under the dragon's flames.

* * *

 ** _Mexico_**

Jackie wasn't what you would call a man fond of alcohol, but he had suffered the effects of a hangover several times in his life. That was the reason why he thought he had had a bad night when he awoke and felt his throat dry and his body numb and hurt.

But it turned out that his throat was not dry because of a crazy night, neither was his body numb and hurt due to it. His throat was dry because of the dust in the air invading his lungs, his body hurt because of the stone and debris over it. He was sure of being lying in his back. Nothing around but darkness, Jackie felt the images and memories of recent days coming back to him. Mexico, El Toro, Dai Gui... Guerra.

Jackie rubbed his palm against his forehead and coughed some dust. A new image flashed in his mind. He tried to move, but he felt something over his left leg. Fortunately, it didn't seem like having any mayor injuries.

"Uncle!" Jackie shouted, and coughed a few more times. "Uncle! Are you here?!" Jackie coughed up more, the last memory, of Uncle's unconscious form when Guerra had put them under a mansion. Jackie's heart skipped a beat.

"Uncle!"

"Aiyah..." a weak voice answered from the shadows. "Nephew makes too much noise..."

The archeologist sighed relieved, feeling as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. "Uncle, can you see something?"

"How could I see in the dark? I think I should be able to..." Uncle whispered then a few incantations in an old variation of Chinese. Jackie saw then some green embers flickering in the air as they gathered in a spot and formed a green ball the size of an adult's hand. The ball started to glow with an eerie green tone until it lighted up as a light bulb, bathing in green the whole place.

He could see perfectly now. Uncle, thank God, was lying only a few meters away from him, and aside bruises and some scratches over his skin, he seemed fine. The structure must have collapsed in a way that the two men had ended in an airbag when Guerra dropped the mansion over them. Jackie looked over himself. His left leg was indeed trapped under some junk, perhaps a piece of a beam that had miraculously landed over him without piercing his body part. He was still trapped, though.

"Light spell is very basic," Uncle said. "It will give us light for hours, or even a day," the Chinese elder looked around and then palmed his face, noticing just then that his glasses had been broken by the fall. "But Uncle doubts that he can make an air spell."

Jackie knew that Uncle was right. An airbag was just that, an airbag; and once the oxygen inside disappeared; the two of them would probably suffocate to death. The archeologist raised his hand and moved it, looking for a current of air to touch his skin, a sign that oxygen was still pouring inside the cave. He found no one.

"I think that we have enough air for a couple of hours," Jackie said. "At least that's what I think basing in the size of this place." _And that's not counting the time we have been unconscious and breathing_ , Jackie added in his thoughts.

"Then better if nephew and Uncle shut their mouths," Uncle stated. "Before they run out of air."

Both men kept silence for the next half an hour, illuminated by Uncle's spel, breathing slowly and deeply, trying to make their lungs take the less air possible. Slowly, Jackie took his leg out of under the piece of junk, finally freeing himself and regaining the ability to stand once more and he walked a little around the cave that was the airbag. It wasn't very big in itself, Jackie walking it only in a few steps. He searched for something that could be exploited as a way to create an exit or any other mean to escape, but he didn't found any. There was not escape; Guerra had made sure of it. No cracks, no overtures. Completely sealed. He sat at Uncle's side, trying to rest and think about something.

"Do you think that El Toro or Gutierrez are still out there? Or like us?" Jackie asked Uncle.

The elder shook his head. "Uncle can't think pretty well, must have hit his head veeeery hard. I doubt that Captain Black wasn't informed about this but..." Uncle sighed. "If only I have my blowfish I could create a way for us to go up again."

After another quarter of hour the two of them started to breathe more harshly. It was clear that they were running out of air. Not wanting to spend his last moments sitting in the ground, Jackie sat up and taking the piece of junk (now that he had it in his hands, the archeologist was sure that it was metal) that had held him immobile in his hands, he started to pierce what to him appeared the weakest part of the wall. "Then I..." Jackie said as he hit the wall, "will do it..." he hit it harder, "by myself!"

Jackie kept hitting the wall, while Uncle looked at his nephew. The elder sat calmly, until Jackie pierced the wall completely, and the piece of the beam cracked it. A sound escaped through the crack then, the welcomed sound of air entering in the cave. Jackie breathed in relief as the current of fresh air penetrated in him, refreshing his lungs and giving him strength. Jackie saw how the beam had been nailed to the rock, so instead of hitting, he decided to push instead.

"Aiyah!" Uncle yelled with newfound strength, incorporating too. "Nephew too slow, Uncle must help!"

The two men pushed forward, making the piece of beam to pass through the wall, creating a hole in it and falling in the other side. More air poured in, which was welcomed, and both men glanced through the hole they had created. Uncle's chi light ball crossed first, illuminating the new location they had discovered. It looked way bigger than the cave both of them had been until now, the light of the ball not being able to get to its limits or any wall. Jackie crossed through the hole and helped Uncle out.

A tunnel? Were they in a tunnel now? It seemed so, probably one that Guerra had used to sneak behind Santana's guards into the mansion. Uncle's ball positioned itself between the two men, creating enough light for them to see where they put their feet.

"I suppose we walk now." Jackie said, and the two men started to do so with renovated spirits, trying to find a way out.

They walked for various hours, or at least so thought Jackie. Perceiving time was very hard without a watch or a mobile phone to indicate in which moment of the day they were. What had happened to Jackie's phone anyway? Probably broken in the earthquake. Man, Jade gave him that as a present...

"Jackie, can you hear that?" Uncle asked then.

The archeologist tuned his ears, trying to hear what the elder was speaking about. _It's probably my guts_ , he wanted to say. He had tried to pay no attention to his growing hunger, but now it seemed an impossible task. But no, wait, he could clearly hear it now. It seemed like a rattling sound coming nearer and nearer… accompanied by small _tremors_.

Jackie's mind went and bought to the surface of his memory everything he knew about hunting treasures or relics in caves, tunnels, or underground temples. If the structure wasn't well preserved in time, then it was normal that it would collapse after an undefined number of years. This tunnel was something that Guerra had crafted in order to sneak behind Santana's back and nothing more, and now Jackie doubted that having a mansion demolished over them was of any good to the structure.

"Uncle, we have to run!" Jackie yelled, but then something unexpected happened. Instead of a full tremor shaking the whole tunnel, Jackie felt how it just focused into one specific area, and after a few minutes, a circular part of the ceiling of the tunnel fell from it, and it was shortly followed by a… gigantic drill? And sunrays?

The drill came out and landed in the floor, while a scale appeared right out the hole it had created, with two agents wearing full operational gear descended with it. Jackie and Uncle looked stunned at what had happened while one of the agents approached them.

"Mr. Chan… er, Chans?" the man, his face covered by a helmet asked of them, while the two of them nodded silently and awkwardly. "Good, we're here to pick you up, I gladly inform you that you are the last ones that are here, sir. Now, if you could go upstairs."

Jackie helped Uncle to go up first, while he followed soon afterwards. The two agents were left in the tunnel, looking if there was something else up there that was worthy of highlight. When reaching the exit of the vertical overture, Jackie was greeted with the skies and air of Mexico, and also with the sight of Jade dressed in her usual black uniform of Section 13, who was standing right around the overture, arms crossed over her chest and smiling quite smugly. Tohru was not far away, talking with Uncle as the old man had rushed towards his graduated apprentice.

"Why do I always have to come to save your butt?" the teenage agent asked, titling her head and moving her bangs in order to give her snarky comment more effect. She offered Jackie a hand in order to help him incorporate.

"For once Jade," he said. "I'm glad that you appeared out of nowhere."

* * *

The agents, a whole platoon that had came in a plane and that Jackie was very sure was the very same that had accompanied Captain Black to the Pacific; were moving around the complete barren wasteland that had replaced Santana's home. Jackie looked both impressed and terrified at how Dai Gui's powers were being used in the hands of someone like Guerra. While the Earth Demon had just provoked moderate earthquakes and tried to crush him with his strength, Guerra was using the powers he now possessed in a very imaginative way. It worried Jackie to no limit, the fact that out there could be other demons making deals with psychopaths, granting their powers to complete madmen.

Captain Black had come with Jade and Tohru, apparently Director White having informed them instantly of their trip to Mexico. At first Black had sounded incredibly angry with Jackie, telling him that he shouldn't had rushed going after someone like Guerra only with Gutierrez's platoon, but the Captain had calmed afterwards. So for now, Jackie was sitting with his family around and improvised table, dinning through a bowl of… _something_. Jade was looking him and Uncle eat the thing without any problem with quite the revolted expression, and Tohru commented with Uncle the wards and safety spells he had put around Tarakudo's mask when the elder made a pause from chewing whatever was in those bowls.

"You!" a shout took Jackie out of his thoughts and made him look into the voice's direction. There he saw Gutierrez, one arm in a sling and even more trashed than either Jackie or Uncle, walking as fast as he could towards El Toro, who completely unscratched remained silent, sitting over a box separated from the rest of the men. "This is your entire fault! Why in the name of God did you enter the house against my orders?!"

Jackie glanced towards the agent and his friend, noting that El Toro hadn't come to speak with him since the moment they had escaped the tunnels. In fact, the archeologist couldn't have known about the luchadore if not for the agent's yells.

"Gutierrez! That's enough!" Black appeared in the scene, putting an end to his man's rant. "I told you that you need to rest. Go and see if someone can give another look at that arm."

The agent obeyed, albeit forcefully and against his will. It was clear that Gutierrez hadn't have his last word with the luchadore, who remained in silence, sitting and looking at the back of Captain Black, hoping that the leader of Section 13 would remain like that and forget about him. Of course, Black turned around in that very exact moment.

"Explain." the captain asked of the luchadore. Black's voice had sounded harsher than normal, and El Toro could have sworn that this was the first time that he was seeing the man angry. Right now he wasn't Augustus Black, the friend; but Captain Black, the soldier, the agent, and he had every right to be angry.

"Captain Black," Jackie said in a calming tone, having raised from the table and approached the pair of men; Jade by his side. While Jackie was focused in Black and El Toro, Jade looked at the receding form of Gutierrez, and saw that he was alone. Jackie was the one to make the question when he noticed too. "Where are Gutierrez's men?"

Black closed his eyes and shook his head. Jackie could felt a shiver running all the way up his spine and Jade paled a little at his side. Black then looked back at El Toro. "That's the reason I need an explanation. Why did you rush in?"

El Toro looked up to his friends. From his position, Jackie had had the sensation that El Toro looked smaller than ever. A hand was taken to the back of the head of the luchadore, and he sighed. "I had to rush in, I must. Paco was there, Guerra could've killed him otherwise, Capitan."

A vein in Black's forehead bulged, and he was the one to sigh now, mostly in order to calm himself. "Care to explain what was that boy doing in this mission? And how did he arrive sooner than you? And while you are at it, tell me also why he was carrying a handgun when my men found you two."

 _He was carrying what?!_ , Jade though in disbelief and a bit of anger.

El Toro looked sideways, avoiding their gazes and the questions. This looked like something the luchadore didn't want to talk about, something that clearly both molested and shamed him. This was what Jackie had felt troubling his friend's soul the passing day. "El Toro," the archeologist spoke, regaining eye contact with the man. "We need to know."

"Agh…" El Toro sighed again. "Paco and I live in one of the city's neighborhoods, in a little house, not very flashy. After our fight with that demonio four years ago, Paco was enthusiastic to start training to be a luchadore. I did it the best I could, but as time passed; he decided to set his mind in another business. Not that I care very much, I actually feel incredibly proud about what he decided to do, working in the local orphanage. Then, as the years passed and he grew, I thought that it was time to tell him about… about what happened to his parents."

"They died when he was but a child, I know that much." Captain Black said. Jackie knew about that too, El Toro had told him years ago, when they have first met. Jackie understood perfectly what was to grew without parents under a man's tutelage.

"Died? No." El Toro answered. "Pedro Guerra killed them. I was a good friend of Paco's father, a member of the local policia that apparently talked out of turn, or asked too much questions."

"But there were no registers…" Black said, but El Toro interrupted him with a dry laugh.

"Registers?" El Toro almost mocked. "Do you think that the cartels wouldn't clean after Guerra did his job? No, the man only ended in that prison because the capos wanted to get rid of him, that's all; everyone in this city, this country, knows that."

"Then he escaped prison," Jackie helped his friend, "and Paco went after him."

"I couldn't let him commit that mistake, but I didn't know where to look," El Toro continued. "Then I heard about the terremotos and I knew that I had to call you. When you located Guerra, I told Paco where he was. And when we got here…"

"You rushed in to stop him before he could kill himself." Black ended for him, rubbing his forehead in exasperation. "El Toro, this entire operation has cost the lives of four good men, so from now on; you and that boy must stay out of this. We'll deal with Guerra and Dai Gui in our own."

The luchadore nodded, and then said something before Black and the others could go. "Paco is a good boy. When we were under the earth, he saved me, taking the ceiling with his own hands and making sure that we won't splatter. He's just confused, angry."

Black turned around and left El Toro, while Jackie decided to remain with the luchadore. As for Jade, she had inadvertently left.

* * *

"Hey." Jade said as a greeting as she leaned on the edge of the door of the part of the plane they had put Paco in. "You got yourself a very nice room. Pretty neat in my opinion."

The other teen took his olive eyes from wherever he was looking at and focused them in Jade. The plane they had took from the Compound was nothing out of the ordinary, just two large lines of seats for the agents facing each other, with little boards attached to their fronts that acted as retractable tables. Paco was currently sitting in one of them, his handgun resting over the board. The amber of her eyes rested a little over the gun and then met the olive of his. They remained like that, holding each others glare until Paco broke it by turning his eyes to the side.

"They have sent you to talk some sense into me, _Jade_?" he pronounced it in Spanish, putting a lot of emphasis in the pronunciation. He knew how much she hated it when her name got mispronounced. Especially when _he_ did it.

"I came by my own," she answered, making sure that her body didn't betray the fact that he had upset her. "And if I can't talk some sense into you, I can beat it into your stupid, arrogant head." Jade made a pause and entered definitely in the plane. She walked a little towards Paco, but didn't approach him entirely. "El Toro has told me... er, us about how you saved him. That must have been pretty awesome. But you took that luchadore training and have grown a lot, so I suppose it's pretty normal."

Paco's gaze fell upon Jade, travelled all over her from head to toe. For a moment, Jade could have told that his eyes stopped a few seconds more than necessary into her bust. She narrowed her eyes and frowned, putting her hands on her hips and making sure that now her body really showed her disdain.

"You've grown too." Paco told her.

"Jerk." she retorted back.

Paco chuckled and before none of them was really conscious both teens were laughing. The laughter echoed for a few moments inside the, aside the two of them; emptied plane before dying out.

"He told us about Guerra," Jade said again "and your parents too."

That seemed to kill the mood quickly, but not so much as Jade had thought. Instead of doing something reckless like she was expecting, Paco just smiled sideways and looked up with an indecipherable look in his face, extending his legs and reclining completely in the seat. "Of course he did." he said between his teeth. "How much did he tell you?"

"Everything." Jade said, this time taking a seat at Paco's side, putting on a very similar position he was in. "So you planned to take on Guerra on your own with that," Jade pointed to the handgun, " _thing._ "

"Scared of pistols now, Jade?" Paco asked in a neutral tone, not wanting to make fun out of Jade, just ask.

"Guns kill people, Paco." Jade said as she looked defiantly at him.

Paco snorted. "Flash news, Jade" he pronounced it in Spanish. Again. "Almost everyone in your little organization carries ones bigger than mine, and they do so for a good reason. There're people in this world that deserve to die, and…"

 _SLAP!_

Jade's hand moved so fast that Paco couldn't see it before it hit him in his face, reddening his left cheek and making him spin his head due to the impact. He was more shocked by the sheer act than by the hit himself. When he turned his head back, he saw Jade looking at him with the angriest of expressions, with a little of what Paco believed was disappointment added in. She got up from her seat and stomped in the door's direction.

"Nobody, _but nobody_ ; deserves to die." Jade said coldly from the frame of the door. "But, if you want to be an emo-teen crybaby, then fine! Be an asshole, be a sucker, it's not my problem!" Jade yelled as she got ready to get out. "And get a good look at my butt if you so damn want to!" and with that final sentence Jade got out of the plane, slamming its door in the process and storming outside with the clear intent of hitting something.

That jerk! That selfish, self-pitying jerk! She had gone there, with all her good intentions to speak with him as his friend, and then he starts bragging about justifying people's deaths! How could he? His parents had been freaking murdered, how could he? She continued to stomp all around the place, taking care than neither Jackie nor Tohru saw her, because they would start rationalizing this whole thing, and then she would have to go again to Paco in order to have another chat heart to heart, and she would said sorry, and then he would, and…!

She stopped to move and breathed deeply, calming her body and temper. _I can be a jerk too, can't I?_ , Jade thought, a bit of shame coming over her mind while thinking about Paco and how their conversation had developed. Man, Jackie was right, sometimes she let her temper get the best of her.

"Have you told him that you like him?"

Surprised by the sudden voice, Jade turned in its direction and saw Stephanie, her blond hair tied into a topknot and her hands moving quickly over the boards of several computers lying over a table. Jade noted that her fingernails had been pained in a strange tone of fuchsia. Even in a mission in Mexico, trying to find a hit-man with control over earth, Steph had time to paint her frigging fingernails. Go figure.

"What do you mean with 'like him'?" Jade asked back at her friend.

Steph typed in something more in the computers' boards, looking at the screens after she did so, and then looked at Jade with an impish grin. "I mean if you have told that Paco guy that you like him."

Jade's narrowed her eyes, and titled her head in confusion, as if Steph had just said the stupidest thing in the universe. "I don't like Paco. Well, not like-like." Jade explained. "But he's my friend; he has been for a lot of years."

"Your friend who happens to be a Mexican, good-looking boy with olive eyes, a cute face, tanned skin, and a trained body." Steph remarked teasingly. "Yeah, totally not liking him."

"Steph," Jade said in an angry tone. "Shut it. _Now_."

The blonde held her palms high and waved them as if surrendering. "Okay, okay. I won't tell anymore. If…"

"If?"

"If you can get me a photo of your uncle Jackie." Steph said. "With a dedication."

 _You have issues, girlfriend_ ; Jade thought, but she nodded in approval just to get the blond out of her shoulders. Stephanie smiled happily, clearly having got what she desired, and then turned to her work again. After checking out the screens for various times, her expression changed from one of chagrin to one of surprise, or someone could have said shock. "Oh my God… I found him."

"Found who?" Jade asked.

"That Guerra guy," Stephanie answered. "I found him. Captain Black!"

* * *

Paco wasn't expecting Jade when she had appeared, but he really was expecting this one. Almost an hour ago the whole bunch of agents that had come to their rescue had started to move and leave the place, only leaving the plane, him inside it, two agents to guard him, and of course, El Toro. The masked man, who now was standing by the plane's door just like Jade had done before, albeit Paco considered his appearance to be quite less pleasant that the one of Jade.

"What do you want?" Paco asked the luchadore. Too much bitterness in his voice, he didn't know if he had done it intentionally or if it had been a slip of his own psyche.

"The agents have found Guerra, Paco." EL Toro said. "They are going to take him down, Señor Uncle will get rid of the demon, and…"

"And put him again in his cell, I know." Paco said, bitterly again. He crossed his eyes over his chest and put one of his feet over the little board that acted as a table for the seats of the plane. "Why didn't you tell me sooner? About what really happened to my parents?"

"Paco, I…" El Toro breathed in order to gather courage. This was thousand times more difficult than any wrestling match, or any fight with demon. Deep down, it hurt more than when he had been transformed into a Chupacabra. "I didn't want for you to bear that burden being so young." El Toro gaze fell over the handgun, and instead of the anger Jade's eyes had, his expressed sadness. "Revenge is not a good way, pequeño."

"And look where that took us." Paco retorted. "El Toro, I know you were trying to do the right thing, but you should have told me! At least a couple of years before, I know that I could've endured it! Then maybe I shouldn't have done…!" Paco contained himself, and took the handgun from the table, getting to his feet. "There is no going back now; I'm going to kill that bastard."

"Paco, I don't know what you are talking about, but I won't let you kill a man!" El Toro said. "I won't let you throw your entire live out the window like that!"

"You won't? You WON'T?!" Paco said. "For years I thought that my parents died in a damned accident, when they were killed by him! And no one knows that, and if they know, they don't do a shit to do justice for them! Do you know what is to grow like me? When you wake up at night crying for your mother and she isn't there, when you see the other children running to theirs and yours is not there to even touch you?!"

"And who was there to stop you from crying?!" El Toro yelled back. "Who was there to hug you, to fed you, educate you?! Those parents of yours were friends of mine! If you think that I'll just clap my hands as their son commits suicide, then you're a stupid, chiquillo loco!"

"You can't stop me, El Toro." Paco said, his voice lowering in tone and becoming cold. As the luchadore grabbed him by the shoulder.

"I can't?!" El Toro asked defiantly.

"No." Paco said, taking El Toro's wrist within his palm and taking the luchadore's hand out of his shoulder without effort even if El Toro was putting all his strength in it. He then punched El Toro in the chest strong and fast, sending his mentor flying across the plane and colliding with one of its interior walls. El Toro fell to the ground unconscious, Paco staring sadly at what he had done. "You can't."

The Mexican teenager put his gun inside his jacket's pocket; not very subtle, but effective. He then directed himself to the plane's door, it had come time to say goodbye to the improvised prison they had put him in. He was sure that those two agents outside knew exactly where Jade, Jackie and the others had gone…

* * *

Jackie was starting to note a patron over the places the Cartels' leaders choose as homes. Just like Santana's, the mansion they were approaching now was ominous, to say the least, and a modern fortress to the boot. Sitting in a jeep with Uncle and Tohru while Jade drove (when had she learned to drive? Had they taught her in Section 13 too? Talk about multitask…), he was mentally revising the information Jade's friend had brought to them. Guerra had been enlisted by more than a dozen criminals, some big, some small; but now it was clear that he was focusing into the Drug Lords that had moved the strings so he could end behind bars. Jackie had to admit, Guerra was an intelligent man. He didn't rush at things, and he didn't use his powers randomly. Word of what had happened to Santana, whose corpse probably remained under the tons of debris that his mansion now was; surely had already spread between the crime lords. The ones that Guerra had on his list were now expecting him, and ready to fight. That was why when Jackie and the others arrived to the lands in property of Ernesto Herbosa, the place looked like a war zone. From the distance, Black and another bunch of agents looked at the scene with binoculars. Jade tossed a pair of them at Jackie, who caught them and looked at the show in display. Herbosa's mansion was under attack by some armed men, probably under Guerra's control. Jackie wasn't feeling any tremors or seeing any rock flying, so he supposed that Guerra hadn't started to move yet. That gave them an advantage. Why was him here again? Jackie was sure that with the help of Uncle and Tohru, and the agents he had brought, Captain Black would have everything under control. But then he glanced at both Uncle and Tohru, who were giving the final touches to the spell they had made in order to separate Dai Gui from Guerra and imprison him. Jade had stopped the car only moments ago, and was now reclining in her seat, a prideful smile in her face. Right, family, that was why he was always involved in these things.

"Alright, everyone." Black spoke via a communicator that all the jeeps had in them. "A and B teams, I need you to enter the house by the flanks and secure Herbosa; Guerra would surely wants to deal with him by himself. If we have Herbosa, we will have Guerra. Are you ready, Tohru?"

The Japanese giant looked at how Uncle put the small sealing box inside a bag. "We're ready, Captain Black."

"We must hurry!" Uncle said. "Earth Demon could be gathering strength inside of human host after his first step in the deal! Must separate now before they bound to each other or they will become something that this world has never seen!"

Jackie looked in the mansion's direction with a worried expression. He wasn't sure about what Guerra would do, if he would try and do this mansion the same thing that he had done to the other, but he was sure about one thing. This time the assassin wouldn't take him by surprise.

* * *

Guerra sat in meditation underground, in one of the tunnels he had dig under Herbosa's mansion. He had been right bringing some help with him this time; Herbosa had always been an intelligent and cunning man, always prepared for the worst of scenarios, always holding loyal men around him that could throw their sorry lives for him. Guerra knew that Herbosa had a panic room made of reinforced steel somewhere in the mansion, and he was going to find it, but before he decided to focus in the battle the boys he had gained from Santana were having with the ones under Herbosa's strings. What could prove stronger, the side fueled by money or the one fueled by loyalty? He could sense them, walking over the earth, a little trick that Dai Gui had taught him. See with the earth's tremors and vibrations, he had called it. It was a very useful skill.

 _Why aren't you up there, fighting alongside your subordinates?_ , Dai Gui asked inside his mind.

 _Because in chess the pawns always go first_ , Guerra thought back as an answer. He noted the essence of the demon inside him, as if he could see the being grinning.

 _I was right choosing you, human. You clearly are a strong ally, and once we are bound, you will be an excellent body for Dai Gui_ ; the Earth Demon continued to say, pleased with the development of his deal with the killer.

 _You know, my father always told me that you demons despise humans_ , _compadre_ ; Guerra thought, trying to give a funny tone to his thinking, if something like that was possible.

 _Putting all of us in the same level is a mistake_ , _Guerra_ ; Dai Gui thought back. _In my own family for example, Shendu and Bai Tza like the taste for human lovers, while Tso Lan is too high of himself to even have them in his domains. Xiao Fung and His Wu had many human servantsnormally wizard counselors when we roamed this plane long ago, and I enjoy having human armies and strong generals serving me, if they are worthy of Dai Gui, of course. Then there are beings like the Oni of the Isles or my sister Po Kong, who only see humans as food._

Guerra thought of it for a moment. It wasn't very different from how he operated, with the Álvarez brothers always by his side, killing for the best offer He wondered for a moment if the two brothers would have gotten out of the city by now. Maybe they already were in some other place, making plans to leave this doomed country. _Then I suppose we are going to get along just nicely, compadre. Wait, can you feel that?_ ; Guerra thought.

Focusing in the earth around him, Guerra sensed new and numerous footsteps around the battlefield, footsteps that didn't belong neither to his men nor to Herbosa's. Who in the name of God was getting his nose in his business?!

 _Chan_ , Dai Gui said inside of him. _Shendu was right, that man really doesn't know how to die._

Guerra's eyes flashed in bright red. _They will lead me directly to Herbosa, and I'll kill them all there._

 _You could just bury the mansion like before_ , Dai Gui suggested.

 _No_ , Guerra thought back. _I want to see the face of Ernesto when I kill him, I want to dirty my hands in his blood, and I want to hear him scream for the decade I have spent in Topo Chico because of him!_

 _Then go and conquer, go and kill_ ; Dai Gui said impressed by Guerra's bloodlust. _Dispose of both our enemies and you will be a God among men, Guerra._

* * *

When Paco arrived at the location the agents had told him about he found himself presented with the sight of a trashed mansion, the sounds of shots across the air. He felt bad for leaving El Toro and the two agents guarding them unconscious, but he needed to do this. He must do this! He couldn't tolerate it, a man like Guerra, running free and breathing while his parents, and so many before them, had been murdered by the monster!

Paco sneaked around the exterior of the mansion, getting inside by an opened window. Good, he was relatively away from the battle, he just needed to search and found Guerra, point his weapon to his head, and…

"What. Are you. Doing HERE?!"

Shit.

Paco was greeted by Jade and a bunch of other agents, six of seven, he wasn't very sure, all of them armed except herself, who was looking at him as if ready to suffer an aneurism. "How are you here?! When… when did you arrive?!" Before Paco had time to answer her, she just facepalmed in desperation. "Whatever, Phillips! Take this _civilian_ " there was a hint of poison in that word, "out of here immediately!"

" _Jade_ listen, I can help… don't touch me, hombrecillo!" Paco yelled at an agent not even taller than him, the so called Phillips who was trying to take him out of the zone.

Jade stomped towards him and put her fingers in front of his face. She hadn't noticed it before, but he was taller than her now, and she disliked that fact to the extreme. "First, stop pronouncing my name like that, I know you can do it right. Second, we have agents here, we have Captain Black here, we have uncle Jackie here, we have TWO experienced chi wizards here to deal with Guerra; so no, we don't need more help. And third, if you're here, you will only get hurt, and I don't want that!"

"Jade, I won't get hurt." Paco said, trying to tranquilize her. "You don't understand, I can deal with this."

"No! You want to put a bullet in our objective's head! Do you wanna know what will happen then? Dai Gui will be out and will possess any other person! Have you not matured a bit in the last four years?! And besides, why the hell do you still have that gun?!"

Jade did not only surprise Paco with her rant, but herself. Her, who four years ago was the first one to appear out of nowhere in a dangerous situation just for the thrill of adventure. A thrill that still remained inside her, that was one of the primal reasons she had become an agent, but now it was mixed with something more. Was this the same thing that Jackie felt all those times, when she just get herself into trouble and he just tried to put her into safety? Damn, she needed to apologize for _that_ one of these days.

But those feelings were quickly discarded when Jade heard fast footsteps behind her and the rest, quickly turning around to see fifteen or so men, all armed to the teeth. Turns out that yelling in the middle of a hall accompanied by a bunch of agents while criminals that hate the guts of everything remotely resembling a man of the law are just a room of distance away, all of them with weapons and more adrenaline in their bodies than the recommendable.

Jade wasn't sure if they were the men of Guerra, Herbosa, or both. Probably the last one, as both parties were, sadly, smart enough to know that putting out governmental agents took priority over taking the other party out. 'Let's kill these ones quickly so we can go back to kill each other again', that was what they were probably thinking.

"TAKE COVER!" Jade shouted at the top of her lungs, and both the agents and Paco went for the protection the pillars at the side of the hall offered; God bless egomaniacs and their apparent obsession to make their houses look like some old Greek temple. But not everyone was able to put themselves safe in time. Bullets flew and struck both Phillips and another of the agents across their bodies, both of them falling down to the floor, their reinforced gear doing nothing against the bullets. Too much caliber for the gear to handle. Paco felt rage boiling inside him, and he drew his own handgun, prepared to counterattack. But then a black blur passed in front of him, Jade rushing towards the attackers as fast as her body could go.

What followed left Paco and even the other agents speechless. It was the most blatant example of a one-sided battle the Mexican teen had never seen, Jade moving swiftly and knocking man after man. She wasn't moving like he had seen Jackie move in the past; neither looked to be having fun. She seemed like a machine, striking down her opponents with swift, precise and strong blows; breaking bones with the same coldly nature a surgeon operates over a wound. There wasn't any yell of anger or battle cry leaving her mouth; she remained silent and concentrated, dispatching man after man. The skirmish ended with Jade standing stiff, breathing fast and anxiously, and the fifteen men in the ground, too damaged to move now, or in the following months. All of it in the spam of a minute.

"Go to meet Captain Black and the others," she said to the agents. "I'll… be with you in a moment."

The agents obeyed, not because they had officially had to, but after what they had witnessed, none of them was going to go against what left her mouth. The only was remaining was Paco, who looked first at the fallen agents and then to Jade.

"This is why…" she said. She sounded a bit tired, more due to the emotions that were running inside her in turmoil than by fatigue. "This is why I _hate_ guns."

Paco looked at Jade, and without knowing why, he tossed his handgun aside and approached his friend, putting an arm around her shoulders. He found that, for some reason that ran deeper than the recent fight, she was trembling. "Okay Jade," he pronounced it perfectly now, in fact he would do so from that moment onwards. "See? No more weapons, no more guns. You can relax a moment before going to Jackie and the others, okay?"

"Okay." Jade said, patting his friend hand with hers. "Relax just… for a moment."

In the distance, she could've sworn that she had heard the sad barking of a dog.

* * *

Punching against a door of reinforced steel, Jackie was trying his hardest to gain the attention of the man that was inside. The access to the panic room was in a large room, It was for little, though; as Ernesto Herbosa didn't want to hear a thing from outside.

"Mr. Herbosa, please!" Jackie begged. "You must run out of this place before Guerra arrives!"

"And I'm telling you, gringo;" Herbosa answered behind the door, his voice sounded ruffled and dry; like the one belonging to an old man that had been smoking for too many years. "I'm not going anywhere; this is the safest place in the whole manor. Let that madman come, I don't fear him."

 _And yet here you are, inside a box_ ; Jackie thought.

"Did not you hear Uncle?" the elder interrupted them. "Guerra possesses now powers of Earth Demon! Veeeery strong foe, metal box won't stop him! And one more thing, if he gets to you, then we all are doomed! One more thing! Tohru, take that door down!"

Tohru looked at the door of steel. It seemed more like the one you could expect from a vault than from a room. "Sensei, I'm not that strong."

"Captain Black, take door down!" Uncle ordered.

Black looked at the old man in surprise. He exchanged some looks with his men. "How? We don't have anything that can go through that."

"I can do it."

"Finally! See? Is not so hard to do as Uncle says! Now, who has... AIYAH!"

Uncle yelled, and not without reason. Standing behind the agents and Jackie had appeared Guerra, arms at his back, hands tied to one another. He had a maniacal grin in his face, as of a vulture that has ran into a wounded animal and is waiting for it to die so the feast can start. "I can, and I will." Guerra said. "I will open that door and kill him, rip his skin away from his flesh and carve the Lord's symbol in his body. But before of that, I will do the same thing to all of you."

"The Lord's symbol?!" an irritated and insulted Uncle asked. "You have no respect for religion! You make deal and have demon inside of you! Uncle will not tolerate for a murderer to smear the acts and words of men of good and peace! Do you want to take Uncle's skin?" Uncle said as he positioned himself in front of Black and the agents, as if wanting to lead the group himself. "Come and get pieeece of Uncle!"

Jackie looked surprised at his old uncle. He didn't know that the elder held so much respect for Christian religion; or any religion at all. He didn't remember that Uncle pushed him into beliefs or something similar when he was a child under his care; neither did he remember of Uncle to make any sacred ritual aside from the usual Chinese ceremony they both made when they went to the cemetery to pray respect for Jackie's parents; but the archeologist had attributed that to culture, not religion. Now that he thought about it, considering Uncle's view of Good against Evil, he could understand his anger.

Meanwhile, Guerra was just staring at the old man and considering the perspective of his challenge. "I know of you, wizard; Dai Gui told me about what you can do." Guerra raised one foot. "Fine by me, I will take that piece of you!" He stomped the ground creating a tremor, making the whole group to tumble, and then raising his hand he made the earth move as if it was a waving sea, striking the agents and sending them against the walls, where they were trapped by stone that melted and the solidified again in order to trap the agent. Uncle was lucky enough to be caught in midair by Tohru, who put him back in the ground. The elder was quick to blow a beam from his blowfish at Guerra, who tried to block it by raising a wall of stone from the floor, but the beam pierced through it and struck Guerra, making him receded various meter, his skin fuming and hi screaming in pain.

"Good magic always triumphs over demons!" Uncle yelled proudly as he fired more magic beams towards Guerra. "Jackie and Captain Black! Help Uncle with Guerra while Tohru prepares spell!" Both men obeyed and rushed to Guerra, who unable to prepare another earth-based attack, fought back with his hands. Jackie had to admit, the assassin was in quite the good shape for his age, and Dai Gui was clearly empowering him. It wasn't the same as with Preston, Jackie had to evade the man's blows if he didn't want to get really hurt, but both hi and Black had an advantage here. They were trained in close combat one way or another, and Guerra clearly wasn't.

"Sensei, are you sure that shouldn't you prepare the spell and I do the fighting?" Tohru asked politely to Uncle as the other two men fought Guerra.

"Nonsense! Uncle promised a piece of him, and he will give it!" Uncle yelled. "Now, prepare the spell!"

"Yes, sensei." Tohru said as he prepared the box and the ingredients the old man had been carrying in his bag. As the Japanese mountain of a man prepared himself to do as the elder had asked of him, uncle shot Guerra once again.

 _Dai Gui told you to take care of the wizard, he could ruin everything!_ , the Earth Demon said inside his mind. _Perhaps Dai Gui was wrong with you, Guerra._

 _Is easier said than done, compadre_ , Guerra thought back as he clutched his chest in pain. _Those greenie blasts are pretty troublesome. Time to play my style_.

Guerra stomped his foot against the floor again, but instead of raising a tremor, he raised a cloud of dust, blinding everyone… except for the one who could see with the vibrations of the earth. He went for Black first, knocking the Captain out with a punch to the back of his head. The next one he attacked was Tohru, enveloping him in solid rock. Then he trapped Jackie and Uncle in the same way he had trapped Santana, making them unable to move. Guerra dispelled the cloud of dust and approached the two men, generating two twin knives from the floor like he had done while dealing with Santana.

"Now, I think someone promised me a piece of himself, didn't you, viejo?" a sadistic grin appeared in the face of Guerra, as he made both knives collide with each other.

"Bad day, very bad day!" Jackie and Uncle said in unison.

"Freeze!" someone shouted. Guerra looked in the shout's direction and saw the agent that Jade had ordered to depart. The assassin looked at them pointing their guns at him, unimpressed.

"Seriously?" Guerra asked, a crimson glint coloring his eyes for a moment before he raised spikes from the floor and attacked the agents. He then made sure that each one of them was struck by a rock he levitated from the ground. Some of the agents got up again and fired their guns at Guerra, while he just laughed at them and raised a rock wall in front of hi, blocking their attack with ease.

"Hahahaha… well, enough with the laughing stock." Guerra said as he created another tremor and pined the new agents to the wall. He turned to Uncle and Jackie once more. "Now, where were we?"

"Uhm… you were about to let us go and surrender the demon inside of you?" Jackie asked with a silly grin that Guerra completely ignored. "Right, Uncle?"

Uncle was ignoring him too, though; instead shouting at the defeated agents. "When will everyone understand? Magic must defeat magic! Uncle has been repeating it for years! Why doesn't anybody ever listen to Uncle when he says that?!"

"I think that Guerra was about to say ' _what just hit me?_ '"

Guerra raised a confused eyebrow. "What?"

Jade jumped in the air, kicking Guerra in the face and sending him a few meters away, though he didn't fall like Preston did when attacked with the same movement. Jade looked at her imprisoned uncles.

"Twice." she said. "I've saved you from a demon in a human body twice now. Second time I save you in the day."

"Jade, be careful with Guerra!" Jackie said as the assassin used his powers to attack Jade with a rock, which she quickly evaded.

"Duh! You'll have to do better than that, mister." Jade mocked Guerra.

"Don't worry, I will!" Guerra shouted as he generated a full earthquake this time and made rocks to come from the floor and the walls into his being, enveloping his arms and creating two long, sharp great-swords of stone. "I'm getting tired of this game. Pray to the Lord, child, because you are going straight to meet Him."

Jade closed her arms over her chest and looked sideways. "Tch. C'mon, everyone knows God's a woman."

"Blasphemy!" Guerra shrieked in anger. He tried to cut Jade with his stone-swords, but she just continued to evade his attacks, jumping and flipping around without a stop. "What are you doing, girl? You can't hope to defeat me with only jumping and not laying a blow."

"Well duh. I'm distracting you." Jade answered.

Guerra looked confused at the girl, just for him to note that someone else had entered the room alongside her. Paco had sneaked behind Guerra in the confusion and was now freeing Tohru from the rock Guerra had used to trap him. The Japanese wizard had put himself to the spell once again, chanting in Chinese loud and clear, the little box that Uncle had handed to him starting to glow green.

The Mexican teenager, seeing that Tohru had everything under control, decided to face Guerra in his own, even without a weapon. The assassin looked at the teen in front of him, quite insulted that he had been played out by a pair of youngsters.

"And you will be?" Guerra asked Paco. "Another blasphemous heathen?"

Paco eyed Guerra. He had imagined this situation a lot during the last days, how this confrontation would develop. In all of them he just had imagined himself pointing his handgun at the head of the psychopath from behind, killing him in cold blood. Now here he stood, face to face with the madman, and his anger boiled strong as magma inside of his soul. Paco couldn't stop himself from wanting to kill the man who had taken his family from him with his very own hands.

"I'm the son of two good persons you killed." Paco told Guerra.

The killer snorted. "You know, you will have to be a lot more specific if you want me to remember, kid."

Paco cackled a dry and short laugh. "Yes, I supposed you would say that." Without losing another second, Paco dashed towards Guerra, fist held up in guard. The killer swung his great swords in the intent of beheading Paco, but the teen evaded them with ease, his body still remembering the teachings from El Toro, and struck Guerra with a lariat across his stomach, sending him flying with the force of the impact, the two stone great-swords crumbling to pieces as Guerra lost his concentration due to the pain.

 _MY RIBS!_ , Guerra thought in agony. _It hurts, it shouldn't have hurt so much, not with Dai Gui's…_ , Guerra got to his feet wile clutching his sided with both arms, and looked at Paco approaching him. He sensed something, like a dreadful aura coming from the boy, not very different to… realization hit him, and for the first time in years, pedro Guerra felt fear coming to his body.

"You… you're …"

Before Guerra could finish his sentence, however, Jade appeared behind him, and putting her leg between his legs, she raised it as strong as she could, kicking the man just in his balls and making him kneel in pain.

"Was _that_ really necessary?" Paco asked Jade, who was just snickering maliciously at the man in the floor.

"Yes, it really was." she friendly punched Paco's shoulder then. "Good movements back there! Never thought you could be that strong!"

The Mexican smiled warmly and looked at Guerra too. The man was still conscious, but clearly defeated, fighting to get to his feet again. Tohru's chant of ' _Yu Mo Gui Gwai Fai Di Zao… Yu Mo Gui Gwai Fai Di Zao…_ ' ran through the room, and tendrils of green chi raised from the box the wizards had prepared and went straightly towards Guerra, nailing in his chest and starting to pull from him. Something was taken then from inside his body, something similar to an elongated, serpentine like thing with horns and red eyes. The classical "Noooooo!" that a demon shrieked when banished and Jade missed hearing so much came from the spiritual form of Dai Gui as he was dragged and sealed inside the box. As he was sealed, Guerra lost consciousness due to the strength that the demon provided leaving him, and the stone and rock that was holding the agents captive crumbled as well. Black and a pair of agents were quick to put Jackie and Uncle out of the holes, and Tohru secured the box, now containing an Earth Demon ready to be put in a special containment unit back at Section 13… when Uncle and him had built it.

"Awesome! Who you gonna call?" Jade joked as she saw the fuming box that had imprisoned Dai Gui.

Paco meanwhile was looking at the unconscious form of Guerra, still not believing that the man who had denied him a family, that had taken so many lives and that had put a manor underground mere hours ago was now there, lying pathetically in the ground, so insignificant, so… _pathetic_. And yet, Paco knew in the moment Black handcuffed him and various agents dragged him out of the room that he would end in Topo Chico once again. The other members of Section 13 should've dealt with the other criminals inside the manor by now, and he had promised Jade not to take vengeance against the madman, but he would end in a cell, alive. Was that really justice?

The Chans and the good Captain thanked him for his help, while Jackie told him that El Toro would be proud. Surely, but Paco still wanted to apologize to the luchadore, too much he had given the teen since his childhood to now be betrayed by him.

The Chans and Paco left the room, leaving to the agents the arrest of the rest of the criminals that were under the manor's ceiling. They would have to put Phillips and the other fallen in bags, though. Good men that had died for Guerra's own ambitions. Something stirred inside of him then. _No_ , something inside of him said, _it's not real justice._

"Hello? Gringos?" the voice of Ernesto Herbosa called from his panic room when the others had left. "Can I come out now?"

* * *

 ** _Hours after_**

El Toro woke up with a strong headache. He found himself still in the plane, and Paco was sitting just in front of him, quick to hand him a bottle of water.

"How are you, El Toro?" Paco asked his mentor and hero.

The luchadore rubbed his head. "I think that I don't have anything broken. Have you continued training without me? Because that was one hell of a punch, chico."

"El Toro, I… I'm really sorry for that, I was just being an idiot..." Paco apologized from the bottom of his heart.

"No, I should be the one apologizing here." El Toro admitted too. "You were right, I should have told you about what really happened to Javier and Silvia."

"El Toro, I…" Paco fought back a tear and hugged the man. "Thank you, for everything. I think I should be saying that a lot more times."

"Now, muchacho." El Toro told him. "Don't make of this a drama, Guerra…?"

"Stopped and alive, in custody of Captain Black, he will hand him to the prison again. Now he has both the cartels and the government against him, he will never see the sky again."

"You didn't kill him." El Toro said, relieved.

"Jade stopped me." Paco said. "I promised her to not be so reckless, and I kept it."

El Toro smiled and ruffled the teen's hair. It was something that he always had done, a sign of the affection he had for him. Paco smiling sincerely at the luchadore, it was good to be at peace with your loved ones.

* * *

"So, everything is okay, right Augustus? Demon captured and psychopath under arrest?" Joseph White asked Captain Black and the Chans as he appeared in the screen of one of Stephanie's computers. "Everything solved?"

"Everything." Black answered. "We have suffered a couple of causalities, but the mission is completed. Dai Gui is inside a box and Guerra will have to endure a large time in Topo Chico's infirmary before returning to his lifetime conviction."

"Good." White said. "If this lasted any longer we would be facing a political nightmare. Good job everyone."

"Director." Uncle cut in. "You must prepare old container of demon-chi in Section 13 so Uncle can put Earth Demon in there and use box with other demons!"

"But that container was destroyed four years ago." White pointed out.

"Then find new container!" Uncle yelled to the screen. "One more thing, design some seminary in Section 13 so agents learn that magic must defeat magic!"

"Fine, fine… take the plane and come back as soon as possible." The fat, grey-skinned man said in his usual deep tone of voice. "White out." he said before ending the call.

Jackie let a sigh of relief to escape his mouth. This had been one of the most dangerous missions of his whole career, and he wasn't even an agent. In fact, Jade and Paco had been the ones to take out Guerra this time. He looked at his niece, who was talking with Paco, hugging him as a farewell. When the hug broke she hit him softly in the cheek and came with the rest of the group, who had started to enter in the plane. After everyone and all the equipment had been secured, Jackie glanced out of the window of his seat one last time to see El Toro and Paco waving from the ground. He waved back and so did Jade, sitting a few seats behind him, Stephanie at her side.

"Jade, you should totally hit on that." the blonde whispered to her friend.

"Steph, seriously, one more of those and you'll have to eat with a straw the rest of your life." Jade threatened her friend once again. " _Seriously_."

"Ah, c'mon Jade, he seems like a good guy."

Jade glanced back at Paco once more, his form had started to become a little point in the ground due to the plane starting to go high. She smiled cheerfully.

"Yeah, he's a good dude."

* * *

 ** _Topo Chico_**

 ** _Night that very same day_**

Pedro Guerra had seen better times. The infirmaries of Topo Chico never were the best in the world, but they weren't clearly meant to have someone with his kind of injuries. Stabbing, a pair of broken bones... but not the mess that was his body now. The ribs had been practically shattered, and the doctor had said that it had been a miracle to be still alive. Guerra knew that it was probably because Dai Gui had made his body strong that he was still alive. His mind was a blur due to the morphine in his veins; the pain was gone, but the thoughts were an angry whirlwind. The images shifted between the corpses of present and past; the two Álvarez brothers, only God knowing where they were now; and the boy that had almost broken him in two. The departure of the Earth Demon had cost him deeply, he felt now even weaker than how he felt before the possession. If it was due to the injuries or to the loss of power and strength, he was not sure.

"What's the expression in these situations? I think is, 'How the mighty have fallen'."

Guerra raised his head as much as he could, just to see Paco sitting in a stool at the feet of his bed, arms resting over his thighs and the back bent over forward, looking at Guerra. He didn't look angry, not as angry as in Herbosa's manor; instead sporting an oddly calm behavior, his eyes scrutinizing Guerra coldly. Paco had ended regarding Guerra as pathetic after his defeat, the majority of the wrath he felt for him having dying down. But someone could consider what Paco felt as something worse. He now felt a cold, bitter hatred for the man, thinking that his existence was an insult for the rest of the people he had killed in the past.

"How did you get in here?" Guerra said as loud as he could. He was making a great effort in order to shout and gain the attention of any nurse or guard, but his throat couldn't afford it; the combination of tiredness and the morphine made it impossible.

"Walking." Paco said, as if getting inside of one of the cruelest and most watched prisons in Mexico was such a small feat. He sat up and walked to the side of the bed Guerra was lying in. "You would be surprised of where you can enter when you're careful enough to not make any noise."

Guerra looked at the boy. He didn't like to look at someone from below like that; it reminded him at how he usually disposed of his victims, like he had done with Santana. Although, he felt disturbed, but not frightened. He had been preparing himself for this since he had understood, in the mansion. "Have you come to kill me? To avenge your family?"

"Not only them, but every other you've killed." Paco answered, and then his expression softened up a bit. "But… I promised a friend of mine that I wouldn't kill you. Unfortunately for you, monstruo, she didn't specify that no other could kill you."

Something happened then. Paco flinched, as if a shiver or a cramp had ran through his body, hurting him. He crumbled forwards, and two bat-like wings of a dirtied black color sprouted from his back. When he looked again at Guerra, his eyes were of a potent and bright red.

Hsi Wu, one of the eight siblings that composed the family that were the Demon Sorcerers; the one know for being the Sky Demon, stretched both his wings and his borrowed body. He looked at Guerra as an impish and devious smile adorned his face.

"My, my, my; look at this." Hsi Wu said, his voice coming from Paco's mouth. "Brutish, uncivilized, and reckless… just like Dai Gui. No wonder my brother chose you as a host."

Hsi Wu looked at the dials that regulated the morphine that was entering in Guerra. "Uh! Are these important?" the demon asked with a maniacal glee. He started to turn them to one direction and another, and morphine started to run in mass inside Guerra's veins. The demon smiled cruelly at him. "Now, now; don't look at me like that, human; this is part of my little deal with young Paco, so, nothing personal, okay? A Deal's a Deal, even if done with a Devil, just like Xiao Fung uses to say. Something you want to say before you go to sleep?"

"El Señor es mi pastor; nada me falta, en verdes praderas me hace descansar, a las aguas tranquilas me conduce, me da nuevas fuerzas y me lleva por caminos rectos, haciendo honor a su nombre…" Guerra said, as his eyes started to close and he fell into a deep slumber, and after several minutes the overdose finally killed him, his chest stopping from moving, indicating there wasn't any life left in him.

Paco regained control of his body then, clearly not enjoying the fact that he had two new appendages at his back. The teen looked at Guerra and checked his pulse, making sure he was dead. There it was, that was real justice; in the teen's eyes. He had thought that this could relieve him, but it didn't. Instead he looked at the corpse in front of him. _He has died with too much peace…_ ; Paco though with disdain, but there was nothing to do now.

 _Hsi Wu, what happens now that our deal is complete?_ ; Paco thought in order to converse with the Sky Demon.

 _I don't really know_ , Hsi Wu answered. _This is the first time I made one of these with a human, I don't know what comes next_.

 _You made a deal with me not knowing what was going to happen?_ , Paco asked, astonished.

 _I told you already kid, I wanted to be in the winning team for once_ ; Hsi Wu answered. _I'm not really sure how this would turn out, but… wait, I'm feeling something now, and- WARGH!_

Paco bend over himself in pain, his new wings stiffening and then closing over him as in protection. His body, his insides, his very soul had started to hurt, to hurt as if someone had forced him to swallow molten metal. He noted his body shifting, changing; his muscles and bones moving under his skin, breaking and healing again and again. He wanted to scream but couldn't, his mouth disappearing one moment, the two sets of his jaw fusing with each other. His eyes were shut and his wings became a sphere around him, and where Paco had stood was now a black egg, the spirits of demon and human inside, clashing and balancing each other in an angry yet beautiful dance. Once one would overpower the other, and then it would be the other way around; until the two stopped and acquired balance. Then the matter, the flesh, blood and bones adjusted themselves around the two in a suitable form. The black egg opened, revealing a new being; something that this world hadn't seen in ages: a truly bonded hybrid of a Human and a Demon Sorcerer.

The being raised, a tall and muscled individual with birdlike features. Paco's face and human, olive eyes had remained, but now his head, and for that matter, entire body; was covered in something that looked like black leather but that he was sure was his new skin. His head was covered by some sort of helmet shaped to imitate a predatory bird's head, something similar to an eagle, a crow, or a falcon. His hands looked now claw-like, still five fingers, but each one ended in one sharp and long nail. His feet were now talons, and his wings fell graciously at his back in one piece, as if they were a leathery cape. The skin was hard as armor, and Paco knew, somehow, that he was way stronger than before. He felt stronger, faster, more aerodynamic. The magic of His Wu, his chi, was at his disposal, and he knew what the Sky Demon knew, remembered what he remembered, and vice versa. He took his new hands to his lips for a moment, noting something strange about them. Was he wearing… lipstick?

 _Whoa!_ Hsi Wu thought with glee. _That was one hell of a trip!_

 _I agree_ , Paco thought in response. _I think we should leave now, this will attract attention, I'm sure of it._

 _Put on a guard's glamour again, and leave this place, we have to put our new wings to test!_

The being morphed then into one of the guards of Topo Chico, and silently, without gaining attention, ascended to the prison's roof. There he reassumed his new and real form and opened his wings as much as he could, stretching his arms to the heavens. The moon and the stars were shining brightly; the sky was just at one wave of wings of distance.

The hybrid flapped his wings and took flight, a powerful black form, like the one of a giant, feathery falcon flew then over Mexico's skies, free and glorious. Paco focused inside his mind once again, searching for Hsi Wu. He found him quickly, the demon clearly enjoying the flight, having missing the sensation of flying in a world of . Then, at the skies of Mexico, Paco and His Wu lost themselves in the freedom of flying in the fresh and dry air of the night, and as they headed back at the home Paco had shared with El Toro for his entire life, Paco forgot where he ended and His Wu started, and so did the demon. And as the feathery hybrid landed, and glamoured himself as Paco in order to pass unnoticed, Paco and Hsi Wu as separated beings ceased to exit. They were, and at the same time weren't; the new individual being both Paco and Hsi Wu at the same time. A new world was opened in front of him, and as he entered his house and went to his room, his mind trailed back to a black haired girl with golden-like amber eyes.

The Sky Devil smirked. This was going to be fun.

* * *

 **A/N: To the ones to get that Berserk reference, you earned yourselves a metaphorical cookie, here you go!**

 **But seriously, plot twist! Ha, bet none of you were expecting that one, albeit I left a couple of clues in the last chapter. Yes, the possessed human White thought about being both a welcomed surprise and an inconvenience were Paco and Hsi Wu. And when Paco commented that it was ironic that Guerra had a demon inside him was because he had accepted Hsi Wu's offer in order to kill Guerra. That's why he was so strong during the chapter. I was in doubt about doing this, but I think this is interesting in order to bring a game changer into the plot, a figure that is neither a hero or a villain… but well, you will have to wait and see.**

 **So, as said before, not very much of the mythos in this chapter, but there would be in the next for compensation; and then in the seventh we are going to start dwelling into full Lovecraft territory, 'cause the Chans are going to take a trip into Massachusetts…**

 **That was all, I suppose. Hope you enjoyed and leave a review if you feel like it in order to tell me how you found this chapter. Bye bye!**

 **PD: corrected the sky demon's name and some other mistakes. Sorry, I had a hard day...**


	6. Unnamed Feeling

**Disclaimer: I don't own Jackie Chan Adventures; JCA and all its characters are the property of Phil Weinstein, Frank Squillace and Jackie Chan himself.**

 **Author Notes: Many thanks again to my (as of now) two usual reviewers for their kind words; they mean a lot to me. Since I cannot reply to Guest reviews, I must write something here for the Guest Reviewer Matt. I wouldn't considerate Shendu and Hsi Wu as "Good" as of yet. Albeit the merging with Paco has made the good of the teen to impregnate Hsi Wu, it also means that Hsi Wu's evil has impregnated Paco. That's why he is a game changer, he's something very similar to a neutral character and that's going to play a part, not exactly in this chapter, but yes in the next one. As for Shendu, he is still the same backstabbing dragon from the show, he just needs Jackie for… well, read and discover. As always, more notes at the end.**

* * *

Jackie Chan Adventures

Out of the Corner of the Eye

Chapter six

Unnamed Feeling

* * *

 **From the journals of Marcus Malone. Sixth entry. October of 1946**

I have not written in a while. It was… difficult. The remembering of the things that developed in Berlin has been rather hurtful for me. I thought, when I started to write, that I had already gotten over my friends' demises. I was wrong. I'm living in France now, a small apartment in Paris and working in an insignificant local newspaper, my old home holding too many memories. Their laughs echo too loud in that place. I didn't told anyone about the incident because, well, who could have believed me? I didn't believe into this thing myself a year ago! They bought that the boys had perished because a car accident, though.

I still have the _Necronomicon_ in my possession; I won't let it to ruin any more lives. If the Elder Things are real, then that means that everything that the blasted book depicts is real. That Yuggoth is real, that R'lyeh is real and that each one of the abominations that are described in those pages are real! Is this the kind of world, of universe, we exist in? Each time I heard someone talking about some advancement in astronomy or about those novellas about conquering space… my mind goes back to the pages, to what populates and roams space. We are alone, insignificant, there is no God, no Yahweh, no Ala… and there is nothing we can do about it. It's like if I had lived all these years with a veil around my eyes, and now it was gone. For example, months away, I met a talking statue of a Chinese dragon, I think. They were taking it to England, surely some museum. Promised me power in exchange of some talisman, or talismans, but I'm done with promises of glory and riches. And yet no one else seemed to listen to him. Perhaps I'm going insane…

A few days ago, however, I received a letter from America; wrapped in an expensive paper with an elegant sigil shaped as a golden 'W' in it. Inside, the letter was written in elegant calligraphy, the words fluid and intelligent. It was an invitation from a man of Massachusetts called John Whateley, telling me to go to his hometown, a place called Dunwich if I'm not mistaken; if I ever wanted to make sure that my friends hadn't died in vain. He requested for me to bring the book; that he could explain and help me. I don't know how he knows about that, but… I have already sent an answer.

I will spend this year's Christmas with John Whateley.

* * *

 ** _San Francisco_**

Every living being that populates this planet needs to feed. Drink, eat, munch, sip… it's necessary in order to refill energy, in order to gain strength and continue existing. That's the reason you must eat. That's the reason why, for humanity, eating has become a pillar of their lives. It has evolved with the species, and the act has changed with them. That's why there are people that make of eating a rule, be it of society or religious moral; or a business, be it selling incredible expensive plates in a palace or a dried and tasteless piece of meat between two pieces of bread; or even an art, be it by cutting fish in Japan, or pork in Spain. Drinking, eating, feeding! It's part of humanity, is a trait that defines humans! And so, as a human can be corrupted by money or sex, resulting in the sins of Lust and Greed; so can a human or any other being be consumed by Gluttony and enjoy in the vices of feeding without any need.

For Rebecca Starling, this was a way of living. The woman would go to any establishment, her long, auburn mane flipping form side to side as she walked to any restaurant or bar, and eat and drink everything that took the interest of her eye and that seemed to be going to provide a good taste in her tongue. It didn't matter if it was cheap or expensive, grassy or light; she would devour it. However, this night even someone like her seemed… outclassed. At the other end of the bar was another woman, this was fat even by her standards. While Rebecca was a little chubby due to her lifestyle, she seemed fine. This one was looked just wrong in any way. For starters, she looked quite obese, and even if there were people who could gain fat in an elegant manner, this one looked plain unsettling, dark and messy hair tied badly in a topknot; the belly and fat of her body swollen; her skin gross and sweating, breathing heavily and with difficulty as she chewed in what looked to be her third burger and she drank from a large coup of soda. For some odd reason, looking at her made Rebecca lose her appetite.

She exited the restaurant she had gone to that afternoon and then headed back home. Perhaps she would regain the appetite with the walk and then eat something there. It didn't last more than ten minutes before she noted that the same overweighed woman of the burger was following her. At first she had thought of it as a coincidence, but then she turned a corner of a street, accelerating her footsteps, and the obese woman did the same.

 _Crap, is she following me?_ ; Rebecca thought as she turned into an alley. _Man, better do something now…_

Rebecca halted and taking her phone out, dialing a 9 and a 1, ready to press another one and call the police. She flipped around, trying to appear the more intimidating as possible. Te obese woman was catching up to her, standing now a few meters away _. It's okay Rebecca,_ she thought, _you have your phone, just call the police if something goes wrong._

"Look, what do you…" Rebecca tried to say, but the obese woman looked at her with a happy expression.

"Rebecca?" the woman said, her voice high pitched, giving to her a funny contrast due to her body size. "Rebecca Starling? Becca, is me, Berta Chacon; your old college teacher!"

Rebecca's fingers dropped from the phone as she focused in the woman in front of her. Her mind seemed to have blocked the majority of memories from college, as she didn't found any of them pretty warming, but making an effort, she was able to remember this one, and for a moment, she thought of her stupid for not recognizing her sooner. Big Berta, the students used to call her behind her back. The nickname seemed too much fitting for the woman. And now there she was, after all those years, in front of Rebecca, a reminder of a time she wanted to forget about.

"Mrs. Chacon?" Rebecca asked, putting into her best fake tone of welcomed surprise. "Oh, so many years!" she said as she rushed and hugged the massive woman. It was like hugging a giant water balloon, just a smelly one.

"Yes, yes… so many." The woman answered, hugging her former student back. Rebecca felt like drowning in the woman's fat, as if her body was going to suddenly been swallowed. Fortunately for her and her lungs, Berta let her go. "How have you been? I haven't seen you in ages! Are you working somewhere? Oh, imagine how happy made me to meet one of my former top students in my favorite restaurant!"

 _I was one of the top?_ , Rebecca thought. "You like that restaurant too?" Why had she asked that one?! The thing that she needed and wanted the less now was starting a conversation with this whale! Why did she ask that frigging question?!

"Oh yes, I find it lovely." Her voice, her damn high pitched voice! Rebecca couldn't stand it. "I never thought that I could have something in common with my students…"

 _We have very little in common, whale. I may enjoy the taste of food, but I'm not a living black hole_ ; Rebecca thought with sarcasm. Here is an interesting fact about gluttons; they always seem to judge others for their eating problems, while they don't focus on their own. Rebecca needed to leave that alley now before this developed into one of those overly long conversations that serve no purpose nor lead to any end. Damn, why couldn't the whale just see that she wasn't wanted? That this was one of those trivialized conversations that were supposed to only elongate in the margin of time between 'Hello', a physical contact, and 'Good Bye'.

"Excuse me," a womanly voice interrupted their conversation. "Could you help me, please?"

Oh, thank God; Rebecca thought exasperatedly. She turned around into the voice's direction, hoping for someone whose intervention could end his exchange of words with the whale to be the owner of the voice. What she saw wasn't what she was looking, hoping, or expecting for.

For starters, the woman was gorgeous, in every sense of the word. Short, red hair adorned her head, potent reddish eyes in looking from her beautiful face, and a sculptural body to mach, with the most prominent (in both literal and metaphorical senses) part of her body being her massive chest. She was what Rebecca called a 'Magnet for every man below the waist'. She was wearing little clothing, which struck both Rebecca and Berta as strange. She must have exited from one of the doors that were at the alley's sides, probably living in one of the buildings.

But what left both women without the ability to speak or move was the plastic bag that was resting at the side of the woman, near the dumpster. It was bleeding, and focusing in it Rebecca could clearly differentiate the forms of several body parts; majority being legs and arms. A corpse, or maybe pieces of several corpses, that's what was inside the plastic bag, ready to be dumped inside the container.

"Oh, don't look so scared;" the woman said. "It's not my fault; a human body seems unable to eat all the quantity of human flesh I want to eat, especially when it's from the arms or the legs… it's too hard to bite there." Her eyes focused in the two women. "But here are you, meaty, big and soft. That's just how I prefer suppers!" Po Kong, the Mountain Demon, exclaimed as she eyed the two scared and paralyzed women and a grin full of pointy fangs adorned her mouth.

A friendly reminder for gluttons. There is always a bigger eater.

* * *

 ** _In another place…_**

 _What is this? Oh, God, please, what is this?_

 _What's... what is going on? Where am I? Someone, tell me where am I!_

Niles Valmont was suspended in a blank space. He couldn't see anything surrounding him, anything above or below. He couldn't even see his own body, or feel it for that matter. Did he still have a body? He supposed not. He tried to remember, tried very hard. Images jumped and danced in front of his eyes in a disorganized manner until they stopped and assumed something similar to sense. Finn, the subway, a little girl pointing to the window, a talk about an octopus, a collision, pain...

 _Shoggoth_

The name made the blank space to stir, ripples of various colors, some of them unknown to the British ex-crime lord; appeared at the same time, twisting and mixing fast and chaotically. It seemed as if the colors had life of their own, moving each one at their own rate and rhythm, each one in a singular direction. It was a dance, a chaotic dance of colors. At one point of the dance, one of the colors touched Valmont. It was weird, being touched by a color. Not a paint of some color, of something that was colored, but touched by the color itself. It felt incredibly weird… and good, and bad. Pleasurable but painful at the same time. And then was when the images came.

And so Valmont knew that those weren't colors, but more memories like his own. He being a little lad living in San Francisco; recently moved from England. Then the memory shifted to his first robbery, her daughter being born… wait, he didn't have any daughters. Neither was he a woman. Memories overloaded him; they were so much that he couldn't continue differentiating his own form he others. And in the end, a new image appeared in front of him.

Mi-Go and Elder Things discussed parameters and calculations, the crustaceans wanted the starfishes to do a good job this time. Valmont thought… No! The being thought, not him! He was just watching through the being's eyes. So many eyes… too many eyes, watching from below. From below, in the pit, Valmont could feel the walls; breathe the Aether impregnating the air in the workplace of the Mi-Go and the Elder Things. He was experiencing and feeling as the thing did. He felt incomplete. He looked above and beyond the scientists. A member of the Thousand Young, large, white scales over its tree-like being, watched in surveillance as the scientific races poured materials into a pit. Chemicals from the underground city of K'n-yian and Aether of cold and far away Yuggoth, also primal mater from brilliant Abbith, fire from the pits of explosive and crimson Haddath… and the chants, always the chants of the crustaceans and the barrel-starfishes, with the Spawn of the Black Goat leading the prayer…

 _Iä! Iä! N'rer'nghai n'ha! Shreaky'ac Hilo'at! Iä! Iä! Iä,_ _Cthulhu!_ _Iä_ _,_ _Tsathoggua! Iä! Iä!_

The elements and the Aether started to fuse into the incomplete creature from below. The chants continued, now even strongly.

 _Iä! Shat'hue'lin! Hiers'ka Yohs'efk'ga! Iä, Azathoth! Iä, Yog-Sothoth! Iä, Shub-Niggurath! IÄ, IÄ! SHUB-NIGGURATH!_

 _C'meri'hi, oh Shoggoth!_

Shoggoth. Yes, that was his name, no! The creature's name… it was hard to differentiate between him and the Shoggoth now. The memories, they told Valmont that he was complete now, that the creature was complete. Something stirred then inside of him, or the creature, or both. A sentiment of… denial to the beings above. The Spawn of the Black Goat left after the chants, while the Mi-Go and the Elder Things discussed some more before the crustaceans, the fungi from Yuggoth, were the only ones left. They looked down the pit and said, " _From now on, you Shoggoth are a servant of Mi-Go._ "

Valmont wasn't sure if it was him or the Shoggoth, but the word 'Servant' didn't set with him. _Servant_ , Valmont thought. _I never wanted to serve, yet that's the role I always fell in_ , he thought again, reminiscent of Shendu. He felt as if falling now, new memories coming to him. Memories of a life of servitude and enslavement to the Fungi from Yuggoth; followed by the birth of the desire for freedom… Valmont fell, without body but he fell, deep down... down… Now he saw himself through the Shoggoth's eyes, and he felt hunger. Every living being needs to eat, but he also felt despise, incomprehension at his own self through the eyes of the abomination. And as Valmont's mind receded and started to melt with a hundred more, a final thought come to him, a thought that he understood perfectly after the loss of his criminal empire, the debacle and subsequent poignancy of his own life.

 _Shoggoths serve no one!_

* * *

 ** _The Compound_**

Joseph White had always been a man of one true weakness; being looked at silently by a group or a single person. His mother always used that very same method to made his brother and him cower and confess their petty actions. Back in Massachusets they always liked to play pranks on and scare the shit out of old man Boggs, the dogs of the geezer always barking at him and his brother as they ran away from his land. And their mother would always look at them with that silent, accusatory glare. And of course, they would end saying sorry and apologizing to the Boggs geezer. Now, however, he didn't know what he had done, so he remained in his seat as the other four members of his little council looked at his own holographic image, glaring at him as if he had broken a very expensive plate. After the meeting they had with Black, each one had remained in there, the Compound having enough rooms and services to maintain them. Albeit the underwater levels were a prison, the higher levels were practically a luxury hotel, able to house hundreds of people and maintain them for months. A good night's sleep and all that care didn't seem to have made his four peers to relax. The gazes intensified over him and White was finally forced to ask.

"What?" White asked in a deadpan tone.

"What?" Nui Lin mimicked in her usual harsh tone. "You mean that the little trip of your forces into Mexican territory is going to be left unchecked? You mean for us to let it pass?"

"While Madame Lin has put it a bit... extremely, it's true that your organization has acted in its own. Again. It's dangerous and reckless to act like that, Monsieur White." Benoit spoke calm, friendly but clearly negatively. Sly little bastard, always enveloping the knife in sugar and bright colored paper...

"Until the moment Mexico joins our little troupe," White answered gesturing to all the presents, "all magical threats that pop up in the continent are under my branch's authority. And besides, it was my organization the one that expended its resources in an international operation, the one that _lost good men_ trying to stop a madman, _AND_ the one who made it. And if some of you are worried about repercussions, the local government had no problems with our actions there."

That seemed to relax both the Chinese woman and the French man, but they maintained their guard up. Dragunov, who had remained in silence all the time, stepped in then. "What about the spirits of the demons of Thunder and Earth?"

"That is also a worrisome matter," Nui Lin said too. "They should be taken here, where they can harm no one."

"The one of Earth is still in the box, and the one of Thunder is still in its human host." White explained. "And there they will remain until Mr. Uncle and Mr. Tohru device a bigger compartment in order to put them in." He eyed both Dragunov and Lin then, and something was spoken without words between the three of them. The only one in the table that seemed to notice was Takashi, but he didn't mind. He knew that both American and Russian had met each other a few times before the idea of the Compound came afloat and that there was some sort of rivalry between them. As for the Chinese woman, she just seemed angry at everyone all the time. "And they will be taken here, where you all can see them," White continued to speak, "when that is done."

Dragunov gave a small nod of approval, and then regained his usual quiet behavior. Takashi was the next one to speak aloud. "I have received reports speaking of Guerra's supposed death in prison. Is that true?"

"Indeed." White answered. "If that's the result of the exorcism of the demon is yet to be seen. The reports from the prison say that it was an overdose of morphine."

"Speaking about the Chan family…" Benoit was the one to speak again now. "Monsieur White, have you ever considerer disposing of them? I admit that they had been quite helpful until now, but…"

"Aren't you all in search of experts in the ways of magic in your own countries?" White asked, his deep voice taking into a smugly tone. "And aren't the majority you have already found, and by the way kept to yourselves, civilians too? If I remember correctly, Takashi here has a couple of… er… Kappa, is that what they are called? Kappa, in his own team, no less. And none of you are any different."

None of the other four attendants say a damn word. White's smile widened, his fang-like teeth showing a bit. "Then I suppose we have nothing else to discuss about. In the moment the Chans have the container ready, I'll come here and bring the demonic souls with me." White's hologram started to flicker away, but just before disappearing, he let ne last sentence for his peers. "And for everything's sake, we are politicians, we do shady things every day, but that doesn't mean we can't smile!"

The hologram disappeared completely, and Dragunov reclined in his seat. "You now, Nui Lin, he wasn't wrong in that last one."

"Argh!" the Chinese woman shouted in spite before rising from her seat violently and rushing out of the room. Dragunov raised a cocky eyebrow after that exit of stage.

"I'm starting to think that China wanted to put her here in order to get rid of her anger problems." the Russian pale blond said.

"Sergei-san," Takashi addressed him. "No need to be disrespectful here."

"I suppose I'm just tired," Dragunov replied. "See you all after." He said as he left the room.

That left Benoit and Takashi alone, and while the Japanese was prone to take out some papers and put them over the table so he could fill them, Benoit just kept staring at the spot where Joseph hologram had been just moments ago. "I don't know how he does it, but he seems to know everything!" he said in an angry tone. "How? And why does he not come here yet, why that obsession with remaining in his own country when we four are already here?!"

"Benoit, old friend; you are starting to sound paranoid." Takashi addressed him as his pen moved fast over the papers.

"It was that borderline paranoia which led me to this position," Benoit cleared. "It's not the same as with Augustus; that man has something tricky under his belt, and you know it. Il pourrait être un traître. Je ne lui fais pas confiance."

* * *

 ** _Section 13_**

White drummed his only quintet of fingers against his desk. Well, that meeting had gone better than expected. His telephone, more precisely his own secret telephone independent of any company or government, working with only another one of those; rang then, and he picked it up.

"I thought you weren't going to call." White remarked in a funny tone. "Sorry, sorry... I had to say it, couldn't resist myself." White made a pause and listened to the words spoke by his interlocutor. "Don't worry yourself with that, is better if you stick to the plan I talked you about." Another stop and then more words from the other end of the line. "Benoit and Takashi are still reunited? Yes… yes, it would be a good idea if we kept an eye on them. I'll let that to you, I have another call incoming. And for the last time, don't worry," White stated as he prepared to hang the phone. "You will have your family in the Compound, as long as you stick to the lines I give you in this play. And when the time comes you will be able to let them do in this world as they please."

The call ended, and White hanged the phone as he smirked pleased. _Families should stick together, that's my motto_ , he thought. White took his office's phone and answered the call he was receiving. "Yes? Oh, it's you… oh, oh, oh, oh! So I was right in my suspicions? There really was a pattern… Good job, I'll have Mr. Uncle in it immediately. Maintain surveillance and interfere only if necessary."

His third call of the day ended and White let out a sigh of both relief and satisfaction. Everything was going just according to plan. While the Chans were busy with this one, he could get a little trip to Mexico using his Gate.

Now, the only thing lasting was to get the book back from home…

* * *

 ** _Section 13's Vault_**

A colossal yawn left Jackie's and Jade's mouth simultaneously as they emptied their third cup of coffee in the morning. Since they came back from Mexico, Uncle had forced them to help him and Tohru in the creation of a new container for the spirits of the demons. Albeit Tohru had protested that he could do all the heavy lifting, Uncle had insisted in that both Jackie and Jade helped because, as the old man put it, ' _more hands make a faster work!_ '

Both archeologist and agent had to admit, the design of the new container that both chi wizards had made was much more impressive than the one made for the containment of the chi essences they searched four years ago. Instead of the cylindrical container made of crystal that Uncle had made from scrap, this one looked much more stylized, made of pure metal and more refined material; and albeit it retained its cylindrical shape the container was now bigger and divided into eight compartments, each one with a little crystal container attached to it. For some reason, it reminded Jade of a recently cut cheese. Damn, now she was hungry on top of sleepy. The entry to the container was now square and apparently the box in which they had trapped Dai Gui was meant to be there; from it a series of plastic tubes were connected to each one of the eight sections. Uncle and Tohru were giving the final touches to their project, the Japanese giant giving Uncle several items and ingredients.

"Tears of Spaniard lizard?" Uncle asked, extending his hand, in which Tohru deposited the item. "Slime of sea-slug?" another little flask was handed to him by the mountain of a man. "Symbol of the Immortal that first defeated Earth Demon?"

Tohru prepared a flower, a simple marguerite that you could find anywhere. "Yes, sensei," answered Tohru. The Chinese old man took the flower and put it in one of the eight crystal compartments that were in contact with the cylindrical structure. In the moment it was inside, the flower started to glow green, and Tohru prepared the box that contained Dai Gui's spirit. "Ready?" Uncle asked as he opened the 'door' of the container, and Tohru made their box to connect to it.

"Ready." Tohru said as he opened the box, letting the spirit of Dai Gui to exit it violently, as if the demon was expecting this moment and interpreted it as an opportunity to escape. But instead of freedom, Dai Gui found himself being sucked away by the machine, currents of good chi pulling from him no matter how strong he tried to resist. In the end Dai Gui's strength failed and he was pulled into one of the tubes that made his spirit form to travel all the way to the part of the cylinder that was powered by the flower. The green glow of the marguerite moved then to the whole segment, enveloping it in good chi and imprisoned the Earth Demon.

"There it is," Uncle explained. "Good chi in combination with symbol of the Immortal will made Earth Demon unable to escape."

"We sure of that?" a tired Jade asked. "'Cause I'm starting to see a patron here, Uncle. There are some evil things, we collect them all, then somehow something happens that makes them all to get lost or be freed… and we end into a final epic showdown against the things. Not to complain against the awesomeness we usually display on those, but I'm getting a little tired."

"Come on Jade, it's not always like that." Jackie said, he sounded tired too.

"Really? It's the third time we face something related to Demon Sorcerers, Jackie. And if Old Dragon Breath shows up, I think that we will just go take a drink like old friends instead of fighting."

Jackie couldn't hide a smile at that sentence, albeit it also made him cringe a little. Shendu had always been the most prominent and also dangerous foe that his family faced, and as lately he had started to have strange dreams with the draconic demon; probably a result of his mind playing games in him with his fears and memories of being possessed by the dragon and how that thing ended. Tchang Zu and Dai Gui never were the brightest bulbs of their family, but if Shendu had something that distanced him from his brethren that was cunning, planning, and over everything else, patience. The likes of Hsi Wu were also mischievous, and he didn't know what they could do if they took, for example, over the body of the president of some nation. The consequences that brought up…

"So, does this mean that we can get back to sleep?" Jade asked the wizards, earning herself a dope slap from Uncle. She was so tired that the teen didn't even protest from the elder's attack.

"Doesn't niece remember that we have to exorcise another demon from another, innocent human being?" Uncle asked. "Uncle needs niece to bring thin-man so Tohru and I can rip Thunder Demon from his insides!"

Jade closed her eyes due to a slight headache caused by the elder's high pitched scream. How was he so energetic, in the morning, and after having spent the last hours building a prison to contain eight demonic beings was something that Jade would never understand. She rubbed her tired eyes. "You mean Preston? Sure I can bring him here, but seriously, can't we take a nap or something? Pretty please?"

"Uncle, please, we haven't slept for real since we get back from Mexico;" Jackie complained too. "What of another demon shows up and we can't fight properly?"

"Does nephew want to risk Thunder Demon to run amok again? No?" Uncle asked as his voice took on soft tone. "Then you obey Uncle and bring human host so we can ex-demonize him!"

"Sensei, please be reasonable." Tohru spoke then, always calm and peaceful Tohru. "Jade and Jackie need to rest, and any other agent, or Captain Black himself; can bring Preston to us. There is no real need."

Uncle grumbled a few words between his teeth as he closed his arms over his chest. "Fine, go to sleep. But Uncle wants you two up and fresh for demon hunt as soon as possible."

Jade and Jackie left the Vault as if they were zombies, longing away to the teen's room, where she had a couch in where Jackie could sleep. "What's up with him?" Jade asked Jackie as they travelled to their earned rest. "I know he can be a bit jerky but this is getting too much even for him."

"Jade, don't be rude." Jackie said as he yawned. Third cups of coffee and no effect, talk about the resistance a body can make to caffeine over the years. "Maybe he's tired too…" he yawned again. "And this is his way of showing it…"

The two of them arrived at Jade's room, and almost without strength let themselves to fall in the bed and couch. Without even seconds passing, the two were deep sleep.

Back in the Vault, Uncle was preparing a pair of castanets as he had prepared the flower. Tohru continued to hand him ingredients, but his face showed much more concern than before. "Sensei," he spoke "are you alright? You have been pretty hard on Jackie and Jade since we get back from Mexico. Well, harder than usual. Is there something troubling you?"

"Has Uncle ever told you why he started to learn magic under Chi Master Fong?"the elder asked.

"Not really." Tohru answered as he put the castanets in the compartment. "I thought it was because you wanted to learn magic."

"Mainly." Uncle spoke. "When I was young I was very much like Jade, always wanted to learn something new, something interesting. Uncle sees a lot of himself in his young niece." The elder's voice took on a totally different tone then, as he sat calmly in the floor of the Vault and his eyes weren't looking at what was in front of him, but at his own memories. "When I… understood what magic was, I was thrilled, thought that I could do anything just with a small spell-book and a couple of bad mixed potions. I was already living in San Francisco; Jackie wasn't still with me and I had… friends. But there was one that stood over the others. He and I discussed over something, and I was so angry… he wanted to do something that I knew it was a bad idea, I knew that it could be so dangerous, but… I let him go, because I was stupid. When I tried to really stop him, it was too late."

Tohru put a hand over the old man's shoulder. "I'm… I'm very sorry, sensei. What happened?"

"A dark ritual, I don't know what the monster that was trying to perform it intended, but it backfired and both my friend and him… were lost." Uncle explained. "I thought that I could do something but I was a novice back then. That was the reason I studied under Master Fong, to prevent Evil to take good people from this world. But Master Fong always said that Evil and Good are meant to clash with each other, that they are drawn to each other. Now, I look at this," Uncle said, gesturing to the container, "and I think that maybe it was I who put my family into this entire situation, and that maybe I'm not strong enough to defend then. Look at what happened in Mexico, Uncle promised a piece of himself, and Guerra almost killed both me and Jackie."

"Sensei..." Tohru muttered. Was the elder feeling useless? Guilty? Both of them? "Sensei, you aren't at fault. You aren't responsible for the madness of rotten men, neither for the loss of good ones. We have faced great challenges before, and we ever triumphed."

"That's what troubles Uncle, Tohru." the elder said, his voice returning to his normal tone, his eyes focusing again in the now. "I feel proud of what I have accomplished, of how Jackie, Jade and you have turned out to be." He incorporated and approached the container, putting his palm over it and feeling the power of the monster inside. "But I fear that maybe I have led my entire family down a path in which the fight against Evil can't be avoided. If a Stronger Evil fills the void led by the previous one... then what will happen when Uncle, or Jackie, or Jade or you face an Evil that surpasses all the others?"

"Sensei, is this related to your nightmare a week ago?" Tohru asked.

"Something is wrong, my former apprentice." Uncle said, sounding beyond worried, probably even scared. "I don't know how, why or what it is… but I can feel it. At first I thought that it could be the demons, but no willies."

"No willies?" Tohru asked, stunned. What could that mean? The Japanese chi wizard looked at the container and pondered what his former master had told him. "Sensei, this may sound a bit stupid, but… since a stronger Evil always fills the void left by the previous one, what if the Demon Sorcerers are just a secondary effect of the new Evil?"

Uncle let those words to sink in his head for a moment. "Then we must do research. I don't like this. I'm feeling like there is something behind me all the time, but I can't see it."

* * *

 ** _Dreaming…_**

"Whohoo!" Jade exclaimed as she and Jackie were launched at the speed of sound in an Ultra Moose rollercoaster with rockets incorporated. Their faces contorted into funny ones due to the speed they were moving at, and although his mind was telling him that at those speeds their bones should have shattered, Jackie was enjoying this time with his niece.

The rollercoaster stopped and both uncle and niece descended from it. "Do you wanna go on another ride?" Jade asked, completely amazed at the fun she was having.

"I don't know." Jackie answered. "But what if we put even more rockets this time?!"

Jade and Jackie burst into laughter. "I never thought that you could be so fun, uncle Jackie."

"What do you mean?" Jackie asked, stunned. "I always had love steamrollers. I remember when I was a child and Uncle took me to this old amusement park… one of my best birthdays."

Jade and Jackie laughed again, and they started to put another set of rockets together using blocks of Lego. They were laughing so much and were so focused in building the rockets even bigger than before, that they didn't notice Shendu appearing right behind them, looking at the pair with what could only be defined as a puzzled expression.

 _What has gone wrong with humanity?_ , the draconic demon thought. _I swear, millennia ago, people didn't have this kind of dreams._ _Then again, there was that time years ago when I got my Sheep Talisman back for a brief time and I slipped inside that Nietzsche human… ugh, never again._

"Shendu!" the Fire Demon heard Jackie shout in a happy, almost childish voice as he looked above from the rockets. "You came today too! Do you want cotton candy and a ride in our rollercoaster?"

"but uncle Jackie, we don't have cotton candy…" Jade protested before the stupidest of smiles appeared in her face. "But what if the rockets shot cotton candy?!"

And so the rockets started to do so, shooting the pink, cloud-like substance from their orifices, creating a little pinkish mountain behind them. Jade put three sticks in the mountain and divided it in three equal parts, handing each one to the presents. For Shendu, who was enormous, it was a fairly normal-sized cotton candy, but for Jade and Jackie, the candy was bigger than themselves. Didn't stop them from eating it in mere seconds, though.

"Chan, tell me, have you ever faced a moment in your live in which you are grateful for it to such an extreme that you couldn't believe yourself?" Shendu asked the archeologist.

"Are you grateful for the cotton candy?" Jackie asked. "I know we could be friendly to each other!"

"No Chan, I'm grateful for the fact that you two are so tired and deep in your dream; that you won't wake up even if I do THIS!" Shendu yelled as he enveloped his fists in flames and hit the floor so strongly that he created an earthquake. The rockets and rollercoaster shattered into tiny, rectangular pieces. "Every party needs a party pooper…" Jade sang in a displeased voice as her fun ended. She stopped when the land and the sky also shattered, and Jackie and her fell to some short of oniric void until they landed again.

Now they were in a… city-like place? It seemed like a city, or its outskirts to be precise, only twisted, or maybe deformed. It would look like a fair, normal city if not for the tall and weird looking buildings, and the wavering sky that changed colors constantly, and also the sea at the city's side, that changed between crimson and dark green from time to time. It reminded Jade of one of those medieval towns of her fantasy books, only if the towers and houses were built in a tall, slim manner that made them look cartoonish and goofy. She could hear voices coming from the place, as if cheering and playing music… were they having a party?

"Whoa, weirdest dream ever…" the teen muttered.

"Jade, could you please get off of me?" Jackie asked then, and looking down, Jade saw how she had landed on top of her uncle's back.

"Hehe, sorry Jackie." Jade apologized and dismounted Jackie. "Talk about realist dreams, though. Never thought that you could feel pain, or Old Dragon Breath could crash _my_ dream like that."

"Wait, your dream?" Jackie asked. "This is my dream, Jade."

"Actually, is the dream of you both."

Both Chans looked up to see Shendu again, this time in his more serpentine, Chinese-dragon-like spiritual form. He was looking at both of them with his usual crimson, bright eyes. "And now it's also mine. Welcome to the Dreamlands, Chan."

Jackie froze for a moment. He hadn't thought of the fact that Shendu still had the powers of the twelve talismans, including one that let him invade other people's dreams. But, if he was like his siblings, shouldn't he lack a body, and so be unable to use the powers? Could Shendu use them in astral form too?! So many questions…

"What the heck are the Dreamlands?" and yet it was Jade who asked the most important one.

"The Dreamlands are a dimension superposed to yours that you can enter by dreaming," the draconic demon answered. "Then again, I was hoping to talk to Chan in his own dream, but it was mixed with yours, child, so I was forced to bring you two here."

"Oh, we can dream together?" Jade asked again. "Awesome."

"Jade, can you please focus in the fact that _Shendu_ is here, probably with the intention of possessing one of us?!" Jackie yelled in a worried tone as he fell in a combat position in order to face his old enemy.

"Please, Jackie, we have whooped this guy's ass so many times that it has almost lost its fun." Jade remarked cockily. "And besides, this is a dream, and that means that…" Jade held her hand out, and suddenly a medieval sword imbued in lightning raised from the ground, and armor with an image of Jackie, Uncle and Tohru impaling Shendu with spears in its breastplate decorate her body. "I can do this. Oh boy, this is going to be _soooo_ cool."

"You shouldn't be able to manipulate this place like that…" Shendu remarked as he looked at Jade both impressed and a bit stunned. "Only experienced dreamers…" the dragon shook his head. "Listen, I didn't come here in order to engage in an insignificant battle with you, Chan."

"Really?" Jackie asked in disbelief. He knew for experience that Shendu wasn't someone to tell truths. "Then why are you here?"

Something crossed Shendu's face then, something glimmered in his blood-red eyes. As if debating with his own self, he finally said something that none of the two humans were expecting him to say. The pronunciation of the words sounded painful in the demon's throat.

"I need your help."

The words sank in Jackie's and Jade's minds as if they were the strangest example of a mathematical equation they had ever faced. Those words leaving Shendu's mouth weren't something that their minds could process. Sure, they could expect it from someone like Tarakudo, who seemed much friendlier than the dragon, but Shendu had been defeated so many times by his family that none of them could have imagined that the Fire Demon could come and speak to them with nothing more than despise and hatred.

"Come again?" Jade asked as she lowered her sword and her indumenta went poof in smoke.

"I need your help." Shendu repeated.

"One last time?"

"I. Need. Your. Help." Shendu said a third time, this time his anger clearly acknowledgeable in his voice.

"Jade." Jackie told his niece in disapproval.

"Sorry, it's just too much fun." the teenager said with a delighted smirk in her face.

"Let's say that I believe you on that one." Jackie said, clearly not buying in the demon's words. "Why would I want to help you?"

"Never asked why my siblings are running around your little world in spirit form?" Shendu asked, his voice taking into a calmer, nicer yet more malicious tone. "There is a reason for that."

"And you are going to tell us, if we let you possess us, or something?" Jade asked as she folded her arms, suspicious of the old dragon too.

"I can't possess you in this state," Shendu explained. "I had still my body back in the Netherworld, and I travelled here using the power of the Noble Sheep. It seems that you think that I suffer of the same lack of physical state as my siblings, but I deem your suspicions wrong."

"How can we trust you in that?" Jade asked. "In fact, how do you expect for us to trust you in _anything_?"

"You don't know that." Shendu said. "But if you want to know what caused my siblings to lost their physical forms… then I'm your only choice." the fire Demon didn't receive any answer after that one last sentence. Jackie and Jade kept staring at him, until their bodies started to fade away slowly. "It seems that you two are now waking up. We will talk again very soon, Chan. And you will have no other option as to accept my offer."

The two humans disappeared with the demon's words fresh in their ears, and Shendu looked back at the city as he found himself alone once again. Dylath-Leen, the Great Port of the West stood enveloped in music and laughs. He doubted that there would be any place for him in that city in the long turn due to his plans, so Shendu normally kept himself hidden in the forest of Parg. He had only gone to Dylath-Leen once, asking for information of the Dreamlands when he had stumbled into the dimension while using the Sheep Talisman to escape the Netherworld, and the city folk had given him plenty to work with quite affably, and aside from a beating he had received from a dreamer, everything about his trip to the city had been a success. Now he knew at least superficial knowledge about every location in this new dimension.

Except about the North. They had told him, that if he valued his life, he must never go to the North.

And for some reason, the Fire Demon had taken that advice.

* * *

 ** _Section 13_**

Both adult archeologist and teenager agent woke up slowly from their slumber. They had only slept for four hours according to Jackie's watch, but it seemed to have been enough. Jade sat up in her bed and looked at her uncle.

"Just to verify it," the teen said. "Have you also had this weird dream with Shendu…?"

"In an apparent parallel dimension called 'Dreamlands' with him asking for our help? Yes." Jackie answered.

The two of them looked at each other, at first not believing what they had lived in their shared dream. That thought was short lived due to the fact that both of them had experienced a lot of weird stuff in their lives due to their involvement in the world of magic.

"It could be a trick." Jade said. "Some kind of illusion…"

"You materialized a sword and an armor suit from thin air." Jackie stated. "And Shendu asked for our help."

"Duh! That could also be the most obvious trap in history." Jade replied.

The two remained silent for a few seconds before taking the most logical option possible. "UNCLE!" they shouted in unison.

* * *

"Aiyah!" Uncle shouted after Jackie and Jade had explained to him what had happened in their dreams. The Chans, Tohru and Captain Black were all standing in the Vault, listening to the words of the two as Uncle didn't stop at anything from spreading a incense over them.

"Nephew and niece shouldn't have talked to Fire Demon! Shendu very cunning and manipulative individual! One more thing! Uncle never heard about this 'Dreamlands' you speak about! One more thing! Why is Captain Black here? One more thing!" Uncle sat down in the floor and swept away from his forehead various drops of sweat. "Uncle needs to take a vacation after all this. In a peaceful place, like the Tibet."

"But Uncle, it's true!" Jade protested. "And that you haven't seen something doesn't mean that doesn't exist. Remember that you didn't accept that Big Red was an Oni at first?"

"Jade is right, Uncle." Jackie said. "I don't know if it was a trap or if even the Shendu we saw was our Shendu, but… ow!"

"Uncle is trying to think!" the elder replied after slapping his nephew, rubbing his temples. "We must play our cards very well if handling deals with Shendu. But if Shendu is forced to ask for our help then we may be facing something far worse than him."

" _Worse_ than Shendu?" Jackie asked.

"Sensei and I theorized that our current predicament with the Demon Sorcerers," Tohru intervened in the conversation, "is actually the result of something else erasing their physical forms from the Netherworld, and so granting them freedom."

"And Shendu remained there?" Jade asked.

"The combination of the Horse and Dog talismans could have helped him to retain his body?" Tohru said. It was most a question than an answer, more a theory than a fact. To be fair, none of them knew what was going on. None of them had thought of the possibility of something else stirring the Demon Sorcerers, something else behind their comeback. They had thought that this was the same thing that years ago, but now, with Shendu's offer…

"I'm sorry to interrupt this little chat," Black spoke, effectively interrupting them. "But we may have another demon on town," Black explained as he took a bunch of papers from his hands and started to distribute them between the presents. "and this one seems more pressing that the old dragon."

Jackie and the rest passed the pages of the reports, not finding nothing pretty demon-y in them. Not that the content was very pleasant to begin with. They were reports of killings, very vicious ones at that, with apparently the victims being dismembered and then tossed into dumpsters. Not the best example of humanity, not at all.

"Gross." Jade remarked. Jackie would have used a clearly stronger word for the photographs that accompanied the descriptions. A part of his mind told him that he would have to look at the fact that his niece wasn't more impressed by the documents. "What does this have to do with any demon?"

"I know that they look like reports of serial killings… well, they are." Black explained, a little ashamed. "But there is no real culprit; instead different people just continue to use the same modus operandi in different victims."

"Imitators?" Jade asked. "Or maybe a cult?"

Black shook his head. "That's the official version, but there is something that we haven't put in those reports. The victims are eaten alive by the perpetrators, and they die shortly after that, due to the intoxication of eating so much raw meat."

That made Jackie's stomach to move aggressively in disgust. He really couldn't catch a break. Tohru's hands gripped around the borders of the papers, and only Jade and Uncle remained calm, albeit the elder wizard had taken a little piece of chalk from his pocket and was now writing symbols in a circle in the floor. Black, however, continued his speech. "At first we thought that it could be some short of cannibalistic cult, and since we now deal only with magical threats, we were going to let it to Section 12 to handle, but Joseph considered that this was something to look into. All the data collected in the perpetrators show no sign of previous criminal acts, so unless they decided to gone insane from one night to another…"

"No need for that, Captain Black. Uncle has confirmed your suspicions." The Chinese elder spoke as she pointed to the circle he had drawn; now showing a miniature map of San Francisco glowing with magic and in it, a little purple point glowing fiercely with the form of a drum. "The Mountain Demon is in the city."

"Po Kong…" Jackie whispered.

* * *

 ** _San Francisco's Subway_**

 _Hungry. I'm hungry. Am I hungry? Or is the Shoggoth who is hungry? Hungry…_

A mass of amber and purple slime moved silently through the tunnels that travelled beneath San Francisco. The likes of the Shoggoth were funny creatures, versatile, strong, fast, and flexible. But their more dangerous ability was, without a doubt, their adaptability. Shoggoths could survive in almost an environment, and they could produce organs and body mass continuously if wanted to replace the ones lost, albeit for that they have to consume mass from other organic beings, which wasn't very difficult in a planet like Earth, where you cannot give two steps without encountering a human; always walking out there without any care. They were able to change their form in order to suit their necessities, be it for fitting in any space, or take any form. That was a Shoggoth's most proficient strength.

And the most interesting part of their versatility relied directly in their very nature. They learned, they studied to adapt, they grow. And so, as any other servant that learns, they rebelled. The Elder Things had surpassed themselves in the design of the Shoggoths, giving them qualities that no other race on Earth (and that included the Elder Things themselves) had, but that had left to the barrel-starfishes' demise. Something that learns and adapts will always search for its freedom. And thus, Shoggoths serve no one.

 _Hungry… something to eat… want to eat… want to hear more screaming…_

The Shoggoth was crawling in a thin mass form over the ceiling of the tunnels of the San Francisco Subway. The creature had gotten tired of feeding over the humans it could find in the tunnels. Every time it hunted, the humans will stop appearing, and the drawbacks of the explosions and the flames derivated from its attacks were pretty rough with it. The Shoggoth needed to feed, needed to get stronger. He could feel something approaching, something that was going to change everything… the creature needed to be strong. And to be strong, it needed to consume. It reached the end of the tunnel, light and voices pouring from it, clearly a station.

 _No… I can't… you… We… Hungry, we need to eat, need to get strong, or else, in the Awakening…_

 _No! I'm not you! I'm Niles Valmont! I'm Me! I am Me!_

 _I. AM. ME!_

* * *

 ** _San Francisco's streets_**

"So you direct a DJ Agency?" a stunning, voluptuous woman with blond, short, boyish hair and dressed in jeans and a simple T-shirt asked the man that had become her date of the night. "That has to be fun."

"You bet it is!" Finn said with joy. He really couldn't believe himself. He just had sent the boys out for a job, and then go to take a coffee. There he had met Vanessa. He never was someone to have something for blondes, but damn the chick was hot! And funny, she was also funny, and above all else, interested in him! He had tried to cheer up Big V when he had met with him days ago, but he had to admit that working for the Dark Hand wasn't the best way of meeting women. Even the name, 'Dark Hand', sounded creepily lame now that he thought about it. Did Big V choose the name because he thought it sounded ominous? Because it didn't. Dark Hand... it sounded like a disease. Now he understood why the most similar thing he had got as a soul-mate had been either Ratso or Chow, and that wasn't something he (or the area below his waist, for that matter) found entertaining. A finger pocked his forehead, making the Irish-American man to return to reality.

Vanessa looked at him seductively. "Head on the clouds?" she asked.

"Yeah," Finn answered, "pretty far away."

Vanessa pressed her lips against his, suddenly and without any previous warning. The surprise was clearly welcomed by him, however, who kissed back. When the kiss broke, Vanessa put a hand behind his head and ruffled his hair in a slow and pleasant manner. "And now?"

"Oh, now I'm totally here." Finn remarked in ecstasy. "At one hundred and ten percent."

"Good." Vanessa pointed to one building at the end of the street. San Francisco was alive at that moment, hour lasting until the sun set. "So... last one in my apartment?" she asked. And Finn felt like he had won the lottery for a couple of times in a row.

 _Old man, wherever you are_ ; the former enforcer thought with joy. _That thing you said about if you live doing good deeds life will thank you? You were right. Now, don't judge me very hard, but look away for... I don't know; give me a couple of hours._

Finn and Vanessa approached the building, and therefore her apartment. Finn finally felt like someone he had wanted to feel like for so long; a winner. No one of the really big winners, but he had found the way of being a winner on its own. A big empire and a legion of people kneeling at your feet weren't necessary, just a bunch of persons working together for something better, and meeting someone that found you desirable from time to time. Of course, the universe liked to use thee moments to play at a game very likely called, ' _Screw you, Finn Foley._ '

Positioned around the building were a duo of jeeps, and exiting them were agents dressed in gear ready for combat. Finn hadn't have to think two times before knowing what he was looking at, his past as a criminal making him clearly able to recognize an intervention by the forces of Law and Order. Specifically, he recognized this type of intervention, this type of gear. He had seen Section 13 in action too many times to not recognize them when they were making a raid. Something inside him shivered, reminiscent of all the punches, kicks and other several beatings that he had suffered under Chan. Why were they here?

Both Vanessa and him looked around nervously, she searching for an explanation or reason for the presence of the agents, he looking for someone that was spotted quickly. After all, it was the only one who wasn't wearing gear and showing his hairless head.

"Hey! Captain Black!" Finn shouted to the leading figure who currently was using a pair of binoculars to keep watch over the building they were looking at. The Captain looked for the one that had called his name, and was speechless as to see that it was the red haired reformer enforcer. "So... what's up?" Finn asked nonchalantly.

"You know these 'Men in Black' ripoff guys?" Vanessa asked.

"Finn?" Black exclaimed, clearly as surprised of seeing the redhead as the enforcer was from seeing him. "What are you doing here?"

"That's my question." Finn said. "Because everytime you're near, it means that..."

The sound of breaking crystal filled their ears as Tohru's massive form fell from a hole in the third floor of the building. The Japanese crashed over one of the jeeps, almost crushing it completely under his weight.

"That happens."

Vanessa seemed just in the verge of screaming, but the mountain of a man just stood up and walked the impact off as if nothing more severe than being punched had happened.

"Whoa," Vanessa said with a dumbfounded expression, "tough guy."

"Nah, that was nothing." Finn told her. "He once survived being thrown from several buildings with just an arm broken. Believe me, Big T's made of very hard stuff."

"Wait, you know him too?" Vanessa asked.

"Kinda being his co-worker time ago." Finn wasn't very sure of telling his first date in months about his past as a criminal, so he had tried very hard into telling things without telling them whole.

"What are you, a former secret agent or something?" Vanessa asked him.

"Eh..." Finn doubted if answering that or not, but he didn't have the chance to as another woman, this one a poorly dressed redhead, jumped from the hole and landed in the middle of the street.

"Samantha?" Vanessa asked.

"You know her?" Finn was the one to ask now.

"Gal lives two doors away from me," Vanessa answered. "Though the red eyes are new, and the superpowers; and the blood in her mouth..."

Samantha, or rather, Po Kong in possession of her body; smiled in a demonic manner at all the presents, her mouth adorned by bloody fangs. She didn't seem in a pretty good shape, her skin discolored and the eye bags under her ocular globes bigger than any other Finn had seen in his life. "Ah, look at all the delicious snacks, all assembled in one place just for me to eat them." The woman looked behind her, and from the door of the building appeared Chan and a chick that Finn understood was his little niece, all grown up and dressing in back clothes and a black jacket, straight out of a Terminator film. And Chan always meant demons or magical stuff, which meant that the Samantha chick was also a demon… why did he always get involved into all this even when he was trying not to?

"Seize her!" Finn heard Captain Black and get himself and Vanessa out of the way soon enough to not be victims of the maniacal rush of the possessed woman, who ran down the street as if persecuted by the Devil himself. Chan followed afterwards.

"Hey, Chan!" Finn shouted trying to gain his attention. "What the hell man? What's going on?"

"Sorryhavetocatchademontalklatter!" Chan sprouted into an inconsistent gibberish that Finn didn't understood at all. The man's niece, Captain Black and the rest of the agents followed near, all of them running behind Jackie. Why were so many agents, by the way? In the past it was just Chan against them all, and he defended pretty well, even when they had magic or something like that. Now that he thought about it, that didn't speak a lot in their favor. Well, at least Vanessa and him had been left alone…

"Finn!" he heard a voice belonging to an elder clearly faking a polite and amiable tone. He and Vanessa looked at their side to see Chan's old Uncle looking at them with a smile that for some reason the former enforcer interpreted as worse than any demon's. "Can you use one of the jeeps to ride Uncle and Tohru to Mountain Demon?"

 _Oh, me and my big mouth!_ ; Finn thought with disdain before sighing in admitted defeat. "Fine, I'll give you and Big T a ride. But only for the sake of the old times. Sorry, babe. We'll have to let this for another day…"

Vanessa raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Are you kidding? I'm going with you!"

"Seriously?" Finn asked in disbelief.

"Yeah!" the woman said. "And I'm giving you extra points for being the most interest date of this year, sugar."

Finn couldn't believe himself. This could have been the most appropriate of moments to say one of those one-liners proper of a James Bond film, but he was interrupted by the klaxon of the jeep that the Chinese old man was hitting like crazy.

"Start driving! Uncle and Tohru need to get to Mountain Demon before she can escape!" the old man shrieked, and Finn and Vanessa took the jeep, with Tohru and the old man sitting in the backseat.

"Hey, Big T." Finn greeted his old acquaintance.

"Hello, Finn. Miss," Tohru said to both the redhead and the blonde.

"There will be time for meetings!" Uncle yelled. "Now drive, drive!"

"Fine!" Finn answered as he put the jeep in function and started to drive in the direction the woman had gone in, followed by Chan. "but care to explain what the hell is going on?"

"Well…" Tohru started to explain in his polite and respectful tone. "You see, almost a week ago…"

As the car started to move, a lonely figure watched them drive away using a pair of binoculars; secured away from undesirable eyes at the top of one skyscraper. White had ordered to no interfere unless necessary… but even if not wanting to get involved, the figure put the binoculars aside and started to descent to the streets again. If they needed help, the more hands the best.

* * *

 ** _With Jackie_**

 _This has gone in the worst possible direction_ , Jackie thought. _Then again, it always does with demons._

Jackie was running in pursue of Po Kong, the demon far ahead of him and Jade trailing at his back only by a few meters. He could heard the other agents in the distance too. Why hadn't they taken the jeeps? Probably because Tohru had landed over one of them and crashed it, you idiot; a voice said in his head. All of them don't fit inside just one of those.

Jackie and the others had arrived at the destination Uncle had tracked the dark chi in; following him prepared to struck the Mountain Demon down before she could do more harm. What they had found behind the door of the apartment supposedly serving as the demon's lair hadn't been pleasant, to say the least. The odor to rotten flesh filling the air and making hard to breath, There they had found her, the Mountain Demon inhabiting the body of a redheaded, gorgeous woman that looked in the verge of dying, clearly a result of her unusual 'diet'. She had been waiting for them, and when Uncle threatened with exorcising her to free the woman she was possessing, Po Kong had laughed in their faces. Apparently, she was the expert of her family in human possession, and she had remarked rather arrogantly that the 'human's soul' had been long gone. Hat had enraged Jade, who had called the demon 'Petty bitch'. Jackie hadn't made an effort into correcting that, she was right. Possessing humans just to kill them by killing and consuming others? Yes, that was pettiness. But of course, his niece had rushed in to the fight, and Po Kong had evaded her… and then reminded everyone why she was called _Mountain_ Demon by sending Tohru out of the building with one punch. Po Kong' couldn't bend any element, but just like Jackie remembered of the Sky Demon being quite fast while flying, Po Kong seemed to have the most prominent physical strength out of all the eight siblings; and that factor didn't seem to have receded by inhabiting a human host. Jackie wondered what would happen to the woman once Po Kong had been removed as he pursued the demon in human guise down a corner and into the entry of a subway station. Would the woman die? He had to admit, this whole situation with the Demon Sorcerers seemed to have gotten out of control. Was this what could have happened if his family hadn't stopped them when they had gotten out of the Netherworld years ago? All this madness, all the suffering? Could they transform the Earth into that rotten wasteland that the world was into that parallel reality? He had to put a stop to this. He must. Even if a part of him hated all this situations with demons popping out of nowhere, he could put an end to this. And that was putting aside his dream with Shendu and the fire Demon's offer. And if what he had said, and Uncle and Tohru theorized was true, then there was something even worse than the Demon Sorcerers ready to strike.

Jackie descended the stairs practically jumping them, and Jade joined him shortly afterwards. The station seemed to be under reparations, workers moving from there to here carrying tools and several materials.

"Did you see where she has gone?" Jade asked as she tried to catch her breath. Damn demons and their incredibly awesome abilities to surpass human physiology!

"No." Jackie answered. Had he sounded too serious? He had heard himself too serious. Then again, this was a serious situation. He didn't want more unnecessary lives thrown in the way. He didn't understand how Jade could be so calm after what they had seen in that apartment, or with Guerra in Mexico. But he supposed that agent training paid off in that regard. "But we won't have a problem finding her here, the station seems blocked."

As in clue to what he had said, the voice of one of the workers raised itself over the others. "Miss! Miss! Listen, you can't be here, this is dangerous, there was a derailment a few days ago, and…" the only answer he got was a punch from Po Kong, who send him flying and clashing into a wall, rendering him unconscious. Captain Black arrived with the reinforcements in the appropriate time to yell at all the workers that by order of the government and for their own safety, they must left the place, which they did, albeit a little reluctantly. That left Po Kong alone, against Jackie, Jade, Black and a dozen of agents. The worst part is that uncle or Tohru were nowhere to be seen, and that troubled Jackie. He supposed that subduing the Mountain Demon had to come before her sealing.

"Surrender, Po Kong." Black spoke with authority. "You have nowhere to go, and you're outnumbered, no matter how strong you are!"

"Me? Defeated?" Po Kong let a deep giggle to escape her throat. "I beg to differ! The only thing that I have to do is snap this human's neck and I will be free to use whoever I prefer from you! You think I will abandon this paradise of consumption? This is heaven for me, the Queen of Gluttons!"

"So you're the queen of a bunch of idiots with bad table manners that can't distinguish between a bad hamburger and a steak." Jade remarked. "Yep, pretty fancy title."

"Silence!" Po Kong yelled. "You humans are nothing but food, and food exist to be consumed!"

Po Kong seemed now in the verge of attacking instead of killing her host as promised before; just as Jade wanted. Good, like that the Mountain Demon would rush to them and make a mistake so Jackie and the others would be able to retain her for enough time for Uncle to arrive and imprison her. It was a good plan… that went straight to hell when a third party arrived at the station, appearing right out of the tunnel.

"Whoa, Nelly." Captain Black said, his eyes widening in disbelief at what he was looking at.

People often don't care, but there exists a difference between the concepts of being 'scared' and being 'terrified'. Then there is the next step, the one that can't be described, the one that is incomprehensible. This unnamed feeling, beyond terrified, the sensation of despair that hits every living being when they witness something that escapes their comprehension. When they see something that, in any other circumstance, shouldn't been there. Illogical. Unnatural.

Jackie heard steps and words coming from the entry, Uncle, Tohru, and also Finn and the woman that was with him entering the station. "Jackieeeee!" he heard Uncle calling for him. "Where is Mountain Demon? Uncle and Tohru will- Aiyah..." the usual cry of the elder that was indication of his surprise wasn't as loud as usual. In fact, it sounded more like a terrified gasp than anything else. The rest of them remained in silence, mouth kept closed by an unnamed feeling crawling over their spines.

Meanwhile, Po Kong was literally trembling. Her mind trailed back to the Netherworld, where her very body had crumbled into nothing in seconds due to Has- no! She wouldn't think about the name of that thing... but that seemed impossible considering what was in front of her now and how similar it was to the King in Yellow.

The Shoggoth stood tall and powerful, the amplitude of the station in comparison with the tunnel it had come from letting the creature to expand its slime body, the unformed mass changing shapes with the same ease a human breaths, the multiple eyes looking at its new preys, its tentacles moving and quivering violently in anticipation of the clash.

Jackie saw a green beam travel above his head (a spell from Uncle, probably an attack made by pure instinct and reflexes) and impact the creature, but the shot didn't seem to do much damage. In fact, it didn't seem to do damage at all. Fortunately, it was enough to take them all from the initial shock of seeing the creature.

"What is that?" one agent asked. "What do we do?" asked another one. "Run for your lives!" the majority of them screamed.

"Enough!" Captain Black yelled, getting all his men in line. "I don't know what _that_ is, but I know one thing, and that's that we have to keep it here, far away from the people."

Jackie agreed on that. They had come for Po Kong, not some kind of… slime monster, but it was clear, from the feeling of dread that the creature detached to the fact that Po Kong had been reduced from arrogant and victorious to frightened in a matter of seconds; that this thing was the worst of the two.

Uncle and Tohru fired a combined beam from their blowfishes at the creature, not very sure of what kind of reaction could that provoke in the monster. Apparently, no one. The beams struck and struck the creature one after another, but it didn't do anything but dissolve them against the beings skin.

"Try harder!"Jade shouted. "Or something different!"

"Sensei, I don't understand why not…" Tohru began to say, but Uncle lowered his blowfish slowly, looking at the creature with wide, surprised eyes, the elder's mind putting some pieces together. "Sensei?"

Uncle remembered the first time he had met with Joseph White, how the feeling of wrongness that poured from the Director had reminded him of the feeling he have had that night, with that nightmare. Now he felt the same thing coming from this thing, the same feeling of… vacuum.

"The creature… it has no chi…"

The Shoggoth moved its slimy body and whipped its tentacles against the floor. The creature launched itself forwards, circular mouth open with the intention to add every organic life-form in sight to its biomass. And in this little moment, when the veil of the truth of this reality starts to unveil slowly as the Pawn advances towards our heroes and the Mountain Demon, you must ask, whose the glutton, and who the meal?

* * *

 **A/N: And another cliffhanger, eh? Man, I hope I stop doing this. I was actually wanting to let everything with Po Kong resolved in this chapter, but I will let it for the first pages of the next one. Now, I think I must made some clarifications and announcements here.**

 **First and most important; to the Guest review of January 30 of 2017, thank you very much for your words; effectively, the Mix between Paco and Hsi Wu is going to be neutral. As for the Great Old Ones and the Outer Gods, they're going to take central stage around chapter ten or so, after White makes his move and sets his own plan in motion. Until then, they are going to be there into some scenes, but that's all. As for their investigation of Chi Magic, they don't need to do it because the big shots (Hastur, Cthulhu, and all the like) they already know. What Yog-Sothoth and Daoloth did in chapter one was superpose and fuse their universe and timeline to the one of Jackie and the others. They didn't arrive in one moment of time, but in _every_ moment, past, present and future. That has let them enough time to investigate that variant of magic, and frankly, I doubt that it could do them any harm. I hope that this explanation serves you.**

 **Second, the next chapter will take a while. I have things to do, and also I want to give attention to my other story and start a new project sometime, and plan the next arc of this fic with enough time… so yeah, don't expect a new chapter of this thing until next month. Or maybe sooner, don't really know how I will be of free time.**

 **That was all. As always, I encourage you to leave a review to tell me how have you seen this chapter. Especially the scene with the creation of the Shoggoth, something that I wanted to incorporate to the story.**

 **Until next time!**


	7. Serve no one

**Disclaimer: I don't own Jackie Chan Adventures; JCA and all its characters are the property of Phil Weinstein, Frank Squillace and Jackie Chan himself.**

 **A/N: Hello everyone! How's it going? Here I come with another chapter for all of you, a long one at that to compensate for the time that has passed. As always, I'll like to give many thanks to reviewers that left their words for this story. You're all awesome. One thing before I start the chapter and that must be present during the rest of the fic: the Lovecraft characters that will appear in this story (as in, the human ones) will be somehow different from their counterparts from the Mythos, since this is another universe. For more notes, see the end of the chapter, and enjoy your read!**

* * *

Jackie Chan Adventures

Out of the Corner of the Eye

Chapter seven

Serve no one

* * *

 **From the journals of Marcus Malone. Seventh entry. March of 1947**

When I started writing this journal, I never thought I would get so far as of now, and that my reasons for doing so would change so fast. I thought I would finish when I retold the demise of my former companions; I was hoping to burn down the _Necronomicon_ and left testimony of the horrors that lurk around us without our notice. Now… things have changed.

As I indicated in the previous entry, I travelled to Massachusetts, a little town almost in the middle of nowhere called Dunwich, near Athol and another one called Innsmouth, this last one in the coast. I must admit that I found Dunwich pretty relaxing and peaceful, maybe because I have always been more accustomed to the life in great and rowdy cities. I arrived in the middle of December, and after acclimatizing myself to the local environment (for some odd reason, the air in the town was too cold, even for winter, and it carried a strange smell; albeit it doesn't bother me anymore) I contacted John Whateley immediately. I found Old Whateley, as the townsfolk call him, in the mansion he still lives in, by the top of a hill that presides over Dunwich. When I met him I thought that his nickname was very appropriate, as he was one of the older men I have met in my entire life. A tall individual with the face completely full of wrinkles, white long hair tied in a ponytail that fell at his back graciously, and the eyes, although had lost most of their color due to his age, still retained the spark of intelligence, of craftiness… the first thought that came over my mind was ' _elegant_ '. Accompanying him was a girl of no more than sixteen or seventeen years old, who was presented to me as Lavinia Whateley, John's daughter. She's pale, both in skin, hair and eyes; but instead of a sickening white, it's of a more _platinum_ -like tone. I thought she was beautiful from the first time I put my eyes over her. Curious and over-energetic too; and where her father seems to bear an attitude of knowing everything, she bears the one of _wanting_ to know everything. I like that, for some reason.

Whateley asked me about my experience with the _Necronomicon_ , which I took out of the inner pocket of my jacket in where I always carry it and put over the table while we discussed that matter. Lavinia was practically jumping of excitement when seeing it, and if not for his father's words of restrain, I'm certain she would have taken it and read it without stop. I thought that Whateley was going to appeal to my desire of revenge, or something similar… instead he asked me if I wanted to know about Lavinia's mother. He told me that she left after the girl was born, that she lives in Innsmouth now. He told me: ' _You know what lies under the coasts near Innsmouth, don't you?_ ', and I naturally knew what he was telling me. He told me, that if humanity is doomed, that if it's not important… why not create something that matters? He told me that he had various associates already; that they operate under a university in Arkham named Miskatonic that he and his peers built with their mutual money. Randolph Carter, Robert Black, Richard Pickman, Ephraim Waite, a youngster named Jie… those were the names he talked about. As of now, I have already met all of them; and I have only good words to say about each one. Whateley told me that the only thing they were lacking was someone like me, someone that had read the book and survived with his mind intact. Whateley told me that he would gave me until Christmas to think about it, and meanwhile he recommended me to the local newspaper in order to provide me with a job. I thought about it so many nights, rolling and rolling the idea in my head… when Christmas arrived, I accepted his offer; and Whateley brought home the entire troupe. I thought I would never find friends like the ones I had before, but these ones bonded with me almost instantly. That Christmas night of 1946 I laughed for real again since 1945! And since then, I have felt like a living man again.

That night, after the celebrations, Whateley and I headed for our rooms with maybe a couple of cups of wine over the needed. When I entered my bed, I heard the door to open and close again, and in the verge of minutes, I found Lavinia inside my bed, looking at me happily and asking for me to read the book for her, to teach her the secrets of the stars. I could feel that she was naked under the sheets while she snuggled against me. So I naturally obliged to her request.

The book always goes with me, albeit Robert and I work into creating copies that he keeps in storage in Miskatonic's library and that we plan to scatter around the world once we start expanding, even if they don't compare to the original. Carter and Whateley provide with found (although the students of Miskatonic pay enough for us to hire new staff and redirect some of the money to our project) and supervise the project; Robert selects candidates when he's not copying the book, Ephraim and Jie direct the process (the rituals) always under my guide, and if something goes wrong or someone gets his nose where it shouldn't have, Pickman and his ' _family'_ take care of it. We will be ready to start with the principal phase of the project (we named it _Whateley Project_ , after all it had been his idea first) by September, or so predicts Carter. By the way, I think that he and Robert are somehow romantically involved, but I cannot avoid feeling anything that's not happiness for them. After all, after everything we have been doing under Miskatonic and engineering in Innsmouth over the last months… judging their orientation would be hypocritical.

But some part of my mind tells me that I should write this down. If you considerer, at the moment of reading this journal, that my deeds can be understood as immoral, or ethically despicable, have this in mind. I'm doing it for the best of humanity; I am contributing to our species' survival, our species' importance in the cosmos and our evolution. Me, who was nothing but a messy reporter two years ago! I am making history! Not Truman, not Stalin, not anyone else! Me!

Lavinia tells me that I shouldn't be writing these journals every time she sees me from the bed; that all of them (as in, _you_ ) are nothing but retrogrades and racists that wouldn't understand. I suppose that she has pretty much the reason there; but then again, I love her with every part of my soul and body, so some bias could be showing there. I think I will propose to her in summer, even if Whateley has already accepted and bless our union.

Well, judge by yourself.

* * *

 ** _San Francisco's Subway_**

Blasts of chi magic flew through the air to strike a monster to no avail. Deafening roars shook the walls of the station, and Jackie Chan felt as if he was a child again, in one of the stormy nights after losing his parents, when he had been waked by the thunder and lightning that danced in the sky, and he had exited the bed he was still unaccustomed to, and gone out of his room in search of his mother. Oh, and how dark and terrible looked the halls of the antique store back then, when he was small, weak and insignificant; when Uncle still was nothing but a face he had seen in numbered occasions, when he was wary of turning every corner because he feared what could be founded behind them. The same feeling of pure, illogical, natural and inexplicable terror that Jackie had left behind so much time ago after years of learning how to use his body as a weapon, how to be confident and brave; that very same feeling of terror had returned now, brought back to the surface by the creature in front of him.

Jade Chan was no different, her body almost paralyzed after the creature had first roared with all its might and the blast of Tohru and Uncle had proven useless. The teenager girl had spent four years honing her skills, both physical and psychological, and her experience with demons, evil wizards and the like since she was a child had made her think that she could never be scared like a baby again. She was wrong. This creature was proving her wrong; its very existence was proving her wrong! Her!

For their part, Finn and Vanessa were in the same boat; as none of them were predicting to come face to face with such a thing during their little, spontaneous date. They were just cursing internally for taking the elder's order about riding him and the sumo instead of heading to her apartment and forget about what they had seen.

The Shoggoth was clearly enjoying the futile show that his soon-to-be nourishment was providing, as agents of Section 13 fired their weapons towards it, the bullets making small holes in the slimy amber-purple flesh that the creature's regeneration ability patched in less than a second. The Shoggoth thought of it amusing… until Captain Black ran upstairs and came back to the station with a bazooka that he had probably picked from the jeep in which Uncle and Tohru had come. He aimed the weapon at the creature and fired, the projectile striking the Shoggoth into whatever excuse it had for a head, creating a big, gaping hole that the creature's regeneration lasted almost a minute into filling again with flesh, the same time that Black had lasted in recharging his weapon. Not good, wounds of that caliber meant the use of more quantity of biomass in order to regenerate, and the Shoggoth didn't want to use all the biomass it had put in stock over the last weeks by devouring the people of the tunnels. And so the amusement ended… and Hell ensued.

The Shoggoth used one of its tentacles to hit the ground, cracking the floor and making the nearest zone to its vast body to tremble as if a tremor had hit it. Jackie tumbled a little before falling to the ground; the motion could have been comical if not for the situation. But at least, falling served Jackie to snap out of his shock and move from his position before a bunch of agents passed almost over his head, charging at the creature yelling like barbarians warriors of some distant past. It was clear that they weren't following any strategy, any logic of battle; being fuelled by their pure instincts and the fear that the creature inspired in their hearts instead. The resulting struggle wasn't pretty.

The Shoggoth just rolled over itself, plastering and absorbing some of the agents as it crushed them under its body, while it used its tentacles to grab the remaining ones. Those met the creature's maw, of course; being dropped almost kindly inside the circular mouth of the being. Teeth rend flesh and tore apart bones and organs, the agents becoming rapidly unrecognizable masses of blood and other fluids, their biomass adding at the Shoggoth's immediately. But the screams, the worst part were the screams. Those screams of terror, of pain, of losing oneself inside the creature, becoming part of it… it were those screams that made uncle and niece snap completely out of their shocks and regain mobility.

Even if she didn't like weapons, Jade went back to captain Black's position, making signals to the bald leader of Section 13 in order to shot another projectile with the bazooka; which he did immediately. The shot struck the Shoggoth again, making it growl in pain and annoyance as almost the entirety of the biomass that it had collected just now by consuming the agents was spent into healing its new wound. The one to charge now was the creature, directing its mass of eyes at the Chan Clan and the remaining agents.

The humans evaded the incoming attack as best as they could, the Shoggoth clearly angered with them now. Who did they think they were? They were nothing but food, the creature needed to feed in order to gain strength, and it was clear that if the bald human continued shooting the only outcome would be losing biomass in a stupid manner. Why couldn't they just behave like good humans and get inside its mouth so the Shoggoth could…? A green glow distracted the creature then, a sphere of energy being positioned in front of its many eyes. The Shoggoth looked at the group of humans, the older one having raised his two hands in its direction, and being quickly muttering something with his eyes closed; the chant that the old man was reciting becoming louder and louder as the glow of the ball intensified.

Uncle opened his eyes then, both of them violently glowing green, and the sphere of energy opened and enveloped the Shoggoth in a dome of green chi energy. The creature started to pound the construct as soon as it enveloped it; for years it had been at the service of the Fungi from Yuggoth, and now they tried to contain its might again? Ha! Shoggoths cannot be contained!

Meanwhile Uncle fell to his knees exhausted, Tohru rushing to him in order to assist him. "We must find a way of defeating this… I don't even know what it is," Uncle said while panting.

"Sensei, what was that just now?" Tohru asked incredulous.

"A spell of my own design, inspired by the magic that melds with the physical forms of the opponents," Uncle explained. "I picked the idea from one of my duels with Daolong Wong."

"But… but that's _Dark_ chi magic!" Tohru protested.

"A defensive variant, my brilliant former apprentice," Uncle continued his explanation; meanwhile the Shoggoth continued to strike against the walls of its new prison, starting to create small cracks over it. "It won't last long; Uncle is not accustomed to use it. But it will give us time."

"Then how the hell do we defeat this thing?!" Jade yelled as she and Jackie put themselves in front of the remaining agents, Black and the chi wizards. Behind Tohru, she could see how Finn and that woman he had brought with him were in the center of a small formation the remaining agents had made. Good, protect the innocents, that was good.

"I could try shooting it again," Captain Black said. "But I don't know if it's having any effects or not."

"Whatever, but… Jackie, where are you going?!" Jade shouted as she saw her uncle approach a figure that was currently trembling in the ground, hugging herself.

"Po Kong," Jackie said to the possessed woman. "You have to help us."

The Mountain Demon looked at Jackie with the eyes she had stolen, clearly surprised. "Help you?! You are my enemy, Chan!"

"Yes, I am." Jackie stated calmly and then pointed to the still imprisoned Shoggoth. "But if you don't help us here, you'll understand firsthand what everyone you have consumed felt when you ate them."

Po Kong looked at the; for now, restrained creature. "You… you don't understand! It's just like the thing in the Netherworld, just like it! We don't stand a chance!"

"No, you are wrong…" Jackie heard someone behind him. Uncle had approached them, clearly recognizing his nephew's good idea, albeit he was leaning against Tohru. Jade and the agents were still mounting guard against the Shoggoth. "You are a Demon Sorceress, aren't you? Then Uncle knows that you know very strong dark chi spells. Dark magic specializes in harming and destroying the body, so Mountain Demon can harm creature."

Po Kong pondered the offer of his former enemies. She looked at the Shoggoth again, clearly afraid of the fact that the dome of chi was now severely damaged and cracked. It wouldn't last for much longer.

"I… agree." Po Kong said. _For the time being_ , she added in her thoughts.

"Then start to cast spell, now!" Uncle yelled.

Po Kong did as she was told, quickly to start chanting in her own, dark purple energy running through her body and condensing in her hands. Her chants were in a language Jackie didn't understand, not even recognize as 'human'. Clearly demonic, then. He didn't like to side with a Demon Sorcerer, but (and this thought scared him to no avail) it was clear that the Mountain Demon was the smallest of two Evils here.

The Shoggoth pounded against the dome once again, now its structure cracked completely. If there was something similar to a laugh for its species, the creature made then a sound similar to it. The Shoggoth struck the dome one more time, breaking free of it at last. The creature roared again and directed another onslaught into the agents' direction. Then, however, Po Kong stopped chanting, a massive blast of dark chi emerged from her palms, very similar to the ones Daolong Wong used in his battles in the past, just _way_ bigger. The blast was strong enough to not only strike the Shoggoth, but to also make it fly a few meters and clash against a wall of the station. The creature regenerated but one thing was clear to it, the demon, and the humans. That had _hurt_ it.

Energy, energy and biomass were being lost at every second. All the work, all the hunts in the tunnels, for nothing, nothing at all! The Shoggoth roared in anger, it couldn't be like this. It was running out of time, the moment of the Awakening was approaching, the creature was certain of it, it could sense it… It needed to feed, it needed to do so now, and these humans weren't being helpful in the slightest!

The Shoggoth smacked its tentacles against the ground again, sending another, yet smaller, tremor around the ground. Uncle was able to pick in these details.

"Creature has gotten weaker! Uncle yelled. "It can't keep regenerating forever! Attack! Attack! Attack!"

"You don't need to tell me twice," Black said as he launched another projectile against the creature. But as if normal for humans, or the majority of species that populate this planet, Captain Black had made the error of underestimating a Shoggoth and its wonderful ability to adapt to any situation. And in this moment, the Shoggoth evaded instead of accepting the attack, making the projectile to strike the wall behind it… and the tubes carrying some king of gas in it. Talk about Murphy's Law.

The explosion damaged the creature the most, as the flames were practically entirely consumed by its body. Regeneration kicked in, leaving the creature even weaker. How much biomass had in reserve now? If this continued like until now, the Shoggoth could be forced into losing its own mass into the regenerations, and it didn't want to do that. Fortunately, the explosion had rendered the humans almost defeated, and the creature grabbed the two that were nearer and ate them in order to regain some strength. Then, tired of this place, the Shoggoth did what it had must done since the beginning. Head to the streets.

Po Kong, who due to the benefits of having an empowered body was the only person still conscious after the shockwave of the explosion, looked at the Shoggoth go, and shortly followed afterwards. _What a magnificent creature_ ; she thought. _Well, as Hsi Wu always put it, if you can't defeat them, join them!_

* * *

 ** _Dreaming…_**

"Age must be catching up to you, Chan, because I don't remember you being so useless." Shendu remarked with a grin as he and Jackie were sitting in front of each other, the two of them in small room decorated in black and white tiles in floor, walls, and ceiling.

"What do you want?" Jackie said. "And how am I here again?"

"You have fallen unconscious, it seems;" Shendu said. Jackie wasn't sure if to believe that last part, though. Had Shendu been spying on him? How? "As for the first question, I was wondering if you have reconsidered my offer of… _mutual assistance_."

"What could I possibly want with you?" Jackie asked.

"Don't play me for a fool, Chan. You just made a deal with my sister Po in the waking world." The draconic demon accused. Yes, definitely spying on him. "And besides, you aren't as arrogant as to not admit when you are outclassed. And I know what you were facing in the waking world, while you don't. I know what kind of beings it serves, while you don't. And…" Shendu raised one of his claws, materializing twelve spheres circling around it then. "I still hold the powers of the Twelve Noble Animals, and I can infuse you with the one of your choice as a sign of our accord and alliance." Shendu's eyes narrowed. "There are bigger, unbelievably bigger beings than the one you were facing in that station, Chan. So, you either accept my offer, or we both are doomed."

Jackie contemplated the offer, and then pointed to one of the twelve spheres. "That one."

"Ah, always usefulness over simple raw power." Shendu said. "Why couldn't you be as corruptible as Valmont was?"

"Don't play your luck, Shendu." Jackie said as the eleven spheres that weren't the one he had chosen disappeared. "I'm not comfortable with this."

"I know." Shendu said as he took the remaining sphere of white light and then inserted it in Jackie's chest. "That's what makes this entire situation all the more thrilling, wouldn't you agree? It's done." Shendu stated as he retired his claw from Jackie. "Don't let the Shoggoth to eat you; it could assimilate the power I have given you by doing so."

"Sho… what?" Jackie asked.

The Fire Demon eyed the human. "The creature you were facing. A slave in the search of freedom, or maybe pursuing an errand for its masters. There is a whole race like it, according to the information I have gathered. Repeat with me Chan," Shendu said as his eyes flared and a red flash imbued the whole room. " _Shoggoth_."

And the dream ended.

* * *

 ** _San Francisco. Waking world_**

"Ugh…" Jackie awoke with a slight headache. He was starting to feel a little annoyed about his latest habit of waking in a collapsed, underground place. He remembered that this was a very risky situation, and searched for the… how was it? The Shoggoth; that was it, with his eyes. But the creature wasn't there, which only could mean…

"Jackie…?" a weak voice asked. "I don't wanna go to school; I want to stay in bed with Ultra Moose and eat popcorn…"

"Jade!" Jackie shouted as he approached his almost unconscious niece. The explosion must have let her only confused. "Jade, come on, it's me!" Jackie said, shaking her by the shoulders. Almost in instinct, he hit her in the side of her head.

"OW!" she complained. She shook her head a few times before looking at Jackie. "Did… did you just pull an Uncle on me?"

"Sorry, have to get you back." Jackie answered. He looked around and saw how Uncle and Tohru were also coming to their feet, the sumo having shielded the old man with his body. Captain Black and the rest of the agents haven't been so lucky, the captain having his left arm trapped under a huge piece of rock. "Captain Black!" Jackie said as he rushed to his friend.

"Don't worry Jackie; I have been through worse…" Black said, but pain was clear in his voice. "The monster, where…?" Black asked, just to see the exit from the station to the stairs. "Oh no."

"Don't worry, I'll get this from you, and…"

"Chan," a voice interrupted him. Turning around he saw Finn, accompanied by the woman from before. They had a few minimal burns and bruises in their bodies. "Vanessa's a nurse, we'll get the Cap in good form; you get whatever that thing was."

"Thank you," Jackie said. "Uncle, what can we do?"

"Keep hitting creature until it can't regenerate." Uncle explained. "It's our only hope."

"Jade and I will try to slow it down and damage it until you two prepare something." Jackie explained. He then grabbed Jade and held her tight to him. "Close the mouth."

"Wait, what- WHOA!" Jade exclaimed as Jackie and her became nothing but a blur and disappeared in the stairs direction at something that could only be described as super-speed.

"Sensei, wasn't that... ow." Tohru said as Uncle dope slapped him.

"Questions for laaaaaater!" Uncle explained. "Quick Tohru, we must make a spell in order to harm creature as much as possible. I know you memorized the one Po Kong made."

"I did, sensei; but that's still Dark Magic, even if we adapt to our own." the mountain of a man stated. "So I insist into being the one casting the spell this time."

Uncle knew what Tohru was talking about. Dark chi was the tool of demons, not humans, the twisted form in which Daolong Wong's body was left after years of giving use to that power was proof enough of what a human body could become after the use of those energies. If not for Wong's chi-suckering mouths, Uncle supposed that the dark powers would have killed him long ago.

"Fine, but only because former apprentice will withstand it better." Uncle said. That part was true; Tohru had much more resilience than the elder; that was clear.

Tohru smiled and the two of them started to strategize as they headed into Jackie and Jade's direction. As they did so, Finn and a trio of agents were preparing to lift the rock that was trapping Captain Black's arm, Vanessa ready to do as much as she could.

"Okay pals, when you're ready, at the count of three." Finn said. "One... two... three!" The four of them pulled and lifted the rock. Vanessa looked at the estate Black's arm was and resisted the urge to grimace. Finn and the agents didn't.

"So... how's it?" Black asked, refraining from looking directly to the wound. He knew exactly what it looked like, he could feel it.

"I'm not gonna lie, Mr. Captain;" Vanessa answered, putting in her best smile. "It doesn't look very well..."

"Yeah..." Black answered. "I suppose..."

* * *

Meanwhile in the streets, the blur that Jackie and Jade were stopped in the middle of one of the nearest streets of the subway station. The teen tumbled a little afterwards, looking suspiciously at her uncle, specially the brilliant glow in his eyes.

"That felt a lot like the Rabbit Talisman, Jackie." Jade said.

"It was." the archeologist answered.

"Shendu?"

"Shendu."

"Tch." Jade protested, looking sideways. _Why does everyone have power-ups except me? It's so unfair_ ; she thought. And people always scolded her for taking them as a child, well look who was making a deal with a demon for them now. She looked at the trail of property damage that the creature had left after its pass. Powers or not, priorities were priorities. "Let's kick this thing's butt, if it has one."

Instead of following his niece to battle, Jackie stopped her by grabbing her shoulder and pointed to the people that were assembling in the streets. "Jade, make sure that no one gets harmed!" Jackie shouted.

"But, Jackie!" she protested. "With super-speed or not, that thing is…"

"Jade, the people…" Jackie started to say, but the teen was able to finish the sentence for him.

"Are the priority, I know." she sighed and patted him in the shoulder. "Just… don't get hurt, okay?"

Jackie smiled at that. "Okay." And afterwards he rushed as a blur towards the Shoggoth.

The creature meanwhile was patrolling the streets, searching for humans to consume. Fortunately, night was starting to fall, which meant very few civilians. Still, it had found plenty once the policemen and firefighters had arrived, alerted by what had happened in the station. They either ran away or tried to fight back miserably, becoming nothing but food. That's it, until the blur of speed that Jackie was appeared and took them out of the way, putting them in safety alongside Jade. He could hear the teenager giving orders to the policemen to cover the escape of the civilians as if it was the most normal thing in the world. He supposed that, once seen the badge that credited her as a government agent they would just give her permission to do anything.

The Shoggoth eyed him and halted for a moment, and Jackie could have sworn that its multiple eyes narrowed at his sight, as if the monster was recognizing and regarding him as the thing that was meddling with its feasting. Great, even a monster with no apparent ability to talk was now holding a personal grudge against him… because the demons and international criminals weren't clearly enough.

The monster shrieked and tried to strike Jackie once and for all with one of its tentacles, but the archeologist evaded it at astonishing speed. Circling the creature as fast as his new power permitted, Jackie created a tornado that started to elevate the Shoggoth in the air until Jackie stopped and the beast fell, splattering against the concrete of the street as if it was a gum in summer, losing anything resembling a form; reduced to a amber-purple puddle of slime that smelled to a combination rotten camellias and hot flesh. What was left at sight was not pleasant, as many organs of different sizes, colors and forms were now scattered over the puddle that the creature was, its eyes were rolling in different directions due to the energy of the impact, and some parts of the slime (albeit Jackie was starting to doubt that it was slime) were boiling.

 _Please, stay down, stay down…_ ; Jackie pleaded in his mind. But then even more tentacles than before raised from the puddle and instead of going after Jackie, they grabbed the nearest cars in the street; just to threw them in the air.

 _Bad day, very, very bad day!_ ; Jackie thought as he used his super-speed to dodge the incoming falling cars, thinking that the creature must have received several damage from the fall and that now was going just for the quickest way of harming him… except that when Jackie got distracted the creature grabbed another car and launched it towards Jade and the others.

"Jade, look out!" Jackie shouted, as Jade and the policemen that had remained in the scene dodged the incoming car as fast as they could, making one of the police cars the only regrettable lost. Of course, Jackie was so fixated in warning them that he didn't notice one of the tentacles until it hit him, sending him flying and rolling to the ground. The first thing he wondered was if he had broken something important, but it didn't seem like it… a couple of ribs, perhaps? Yes, his side hurt when he incorporated. Damn, why didn't he take the power of the Horse Talisman? Another tentacle grabbed him by his waist and then enveloped his whole body, raising him in the air. The Shoggoth started to raise once again, the puddle converging and condensing in the form of the creature once again. It looked smaller, or at least so thought the archeologist. In its eyes, Jackie couldn't appreciate any other emotion that wasn't pure hatred.

The Shoggoth had received too much damage. All the work! Of the last weeks! Trying to keep a low profile in order to hide from the Mi-Go! For nothing! To lose all biomass, just at the hands of humans! The creature roared in Jackie's face, which the man took as sign of the being's anger. Jackie was presented with the sight of the creature's maw and numerous lines of teeth. Jackie felt fear again at such sight… was this his end? After all the monsters and adventures, was he going to end in the stomach of a monstrosity? The thought wasn't very surprising though, he had been expecting for his end to be like this or at least something very similar since he had laid eyes upon Shendu's real form years ago.

However, something struck the creature's tentacle from afar. At first Jackie thought that it had been one of Uncle and Tohru's chi beams, but as he fell and landed in the ground, the tentacle dissolving around him, and he rushed with the use of the Rabbit Talisman to Jade's side, he found the teen looking in almost awe at the spot the _bullet_ that had freed him had come from. Even if he had tried not to… his heart skipped a beat.

There, standing in the middle of the street, a riffle in hands and now having gained the attention of the Shoggoth… with the same black, long hair; the same tanned skin, and clad in the same dark spy-suit… was no other than Viper.

The former thief raised one hand in the distance, and without knowing of something better to say, he sprouted a sonorous yet timid "Hello."

* * *

 ** _Mexico_**

Padre Ramirez, a priest in his middle thirties, was a man of Christ progress and mercy; or so everyone in the little town where he presided over a church said. However, behind the holy words and the good deeds, and literally under his church, you could see the evil that populates the hearts of the holiest of men. Children were kept there, mostly working, but also as merchandise, workers for other slavers, soldiers for the criminal emperors. And there were the unlucky ones that the good priest kept to himself. While the drug cartel held control of the majority of the big businesses, it were men like this priest, men of crime that directed small organizations and that operated in small towns.

Today, however, the good priest had a lone visitor in the church; one of those lost souls that had fallen in the hands of Satan and had distanced themselves from the path of God. The priest sat in his confessionary, the only thing separating him from the sinner a thin wall full of tiny holes, ready for the priest and the sinner to talk, be heard and hear back; but not to see.

"Ave Maria Purísima." the sinner said.

"Sin pecado concevida." the priest answered.

"Forgive me father, because I've sinned." the voice didn't seem full matured yet, or at least that's how Padre Ramirez perceived it. A young man? Well, youngsters were well received in his church, but he had to admit that they weren't a frequent visitors for his faith.

"What is it, son?" the priest asked. He could dispatch this one fast and return underground, he had another set of little fruits to attend to. He resisted the urge of licking his lips. After all, what could this youngster have done? Maybe impregnate a girl as they slept for the first time? Maybe a pair of prayers, and…

"I've killed, father."

Silence reigned over the confessionary for several minutes. Then the priest tried to talk, just to gasp absurdly, and then be able to make a word leave his mouth. "That's… that's a really grave sin, son. The worst of them all, for you have taken God's blessing of life from a man against his will. What led you to do that?" Damn it all, why were all crazy bastards so adept to going to the church for pity after committing a killing? If they felt so guilty, then turn to the police, not him!

"Oh, many things, many things; Padre." the young man said. "But it wasn't just one, they were so many… very bad men, all of them."

"Did you hate them, son? Did they harm you?" Ramirez asked. He didn't like where this was going.

He could have sworn that something shifted and moved in the other side of the thin wall, and then the voice of the young man sounded different, calmer, deeper, colder, and more matured. "Hate them? No, hardly even. I didn't know of their existence until days ago. But the children know them, and the children know me. And you know something, Padre Ramirez? The children also know you."

Now Ramirez felt scared. "W-who are you?"

"Isn't it obvious?" the young man said, as a black, claw-like hand pierced through the thin wall and grabbed the priest by the neck. As if being a ragdoll, the priest was thrown out of the confessionary, shattering its wooded doors as it did so. He landed in the great hall of the church, the moon of the night making the depictions of the idols and saints in colored crystals to shine in a rather disturbing glory. From the remains of the confessionary rose the form of the hybrid that had resulted from the union of Paco and Hsi Wu, it's black, terrible, leathery yet elegant form walking slowly towards the quivering man. "I'm the Devil, and I have _come for you_."

"Get… Get away from me!" the fallen priest yelled cowardly. "Out of this house! Out of this house! The House of Christ! You have no place here… AGH!" the priest protested as one of the hybrid's talons stomped in his stomach and nailed its claws in it, making him growl in pain, blood starting to pour from the new, deep wounds.

"And yet, here I stand." the leathery form with bird-like features said, as he looked down and his purple painted lips curved in a cruel smile. "Do you understand what that means, Ramirez?" he raised one of his claw-like hands and pointed towards the image of Christ, hanging in the crucifix as he nailed even deeper his talon in the man's stomach. "You have lost His favor!" he exclaimed as he nailed the talon entirely and ripped away the man's intestines.

Padre Ramirez crawled away as soon as the talon was taken from him, his blood and entrails dirtying the floor as he tried to approach the great crucifix that was in presidency of the hall, fro were the image of Christ looked at all who crossed gazes with him with a saddened expression full of pity. He raised one hand in the idol's direction, as if begin for help, but no answer came. The hand fell, and the man's whole body followed. The puddle of blood under him grew, and then he gave his last breath as the Sky Devil looked satisfied from afar.

"Haha! Right out of the mind of Frank Miller! And quite an impressive display, if I must add."

Turning around calmly, the Sky Devil looked at the doors of the church, where a fat man stood still, leaning on a cane, and wearing a formal suit and a hat to accompany it. His skin was dark grey, and he lacked the right arm. "Seriously, if I had both hands you would be hearing clapping now." Joseph White commented nonchalantly as he walked towards the now dead priest, hitting his head a couple of times with the end of his cane as he reached him. " _A lot_ of clapping"

"Who're you?" The Sky Devil asked, as he closed his arms over his chest and looked into White's direction. "Because if you are looking for a place to pray to God, I think that I just put this church out of commission."

"There is not just one God." his interlocutor remarked in an angry tone, as if the leathery aviary man had said something totally unforgivable. "And they don't look in the slightest as pathetic as that." He said again as he pointed to the crucifix.

"Who are you?" the hybrid asked once again, and this time he too used a dangerous tone, his talons scratching the floor of the church as he approached the stranger. The one-handed man regained his composure, yet the Sky Devil couldn't feel any trace of real fear from him. _Interesting,_ he thought.

"Ah, where are my manners?" the man nailed his cane in the dead priest's body, and then extended his only arm towards the devil. "Joseph White, Director of Section 13."

Reluctantly, the Sky Devil shook the man's hand. The contact was weird even for his armored skin, as he was touching something that was both dry and soft at the same time. Such a weird feeling… the hybrid looked for any trace of chi inside the man, to find no one. Interesting had just become problematic.

Sensing his interlocutor's unease, White took back his hand. "Sorry if my presence here shocks you, but I really needed to meet with you since I learned of your... let's say peculiar way of coming into existence." White took off his hat and put it in his cane's top. "By the way, how do I exactly call you? Paco, Hsi Wu? Pasi Wuco?"

"I've yet to decide a name. Since I am both Paco and Hsi Wu at the same time it isn't very easy." The devil answered. "Why are you here? And how do you know about my existence?"

"Direct to the point, I must admit I found that pleasant." White adjusted his glasses and laughed a bit nervously. "Don't worry; I'm not here to detain you or something like that! But you see, I have been preparing a 'family reunion' for one of your siblings and... well, here are you. Since it seems I can't hope to have Hsi Wu's spirit without buying the full," he gestured towards the whole being's form, " _package_ ; I was hoping for you to hear a little proposal." White took his hat again and picked his cane from the corpse, swinging it in order to make the blood in it to drop. "And if we could do so in a…" he pointed to the corpse with the tip of his cane. "More hygienic place, it would be marvelous."

"The children are still in the workplace," the hybrid remarked.

"Do you really care?" White asked, clear that he was more intrigued by the morality and feelings of the individual in front of him than by the wellbeing of the captives.

"I'm not very sure myself," the Sky Devil remarked, taking a pair of fingers to his chin. "But the part of Paco in me cares about children and hates men like this priest, and the Hsi Wu part enjoys terrorizing and murdering people. This way of procedure seems to be the form into which satisfying them both."

"I will make sure that the children are free and in good hands by tomorrow. And what do you think about my offer of a friendly chat?" White asked again.

"You've said that you are the Director of Section 13," the hybrid said. "Which means that you are making a deal with a demon, when you clearly shouldn't. This raises a couple of questions, while the feeling I can sense from you... just to be sure."

"Just to be sure, what?" White asked, just for the hybrid to launch one of his claws at him, grabbing the Director by the neck and holding him up. White raised his cane towards the Sky Devil in response, the stick lighting up in bluish and strange runes. From the end of the cane shot then something akin to a blue lightning, hitting the hybrid in his chest and sending him across the church's hall. He rose to his talons and blasted a beam of dark chi towards the director, who raised his cane and cut through the blast with it using a descending blow, blue energy sparkling from the runes as the dark blast was reduced to nothing.

"That didn't look like chi magic," the Sky Devil remarked. In fact, it hadn't look as anything he had seen in the millennia of existence that Hsi Wu had.

"Of course not," White answered, a bit enraged. "And if you think of that potion boiling discipline as the only form of sorcery in this planet, then you have still a lot to learn."

"Well, in the Netherworld they always said I was a bit reckless and childlike," the hybrid answered. "And my human part is still a teen. So please, enlighten me!" He yelled as he took flight and charging against White, who this time pointed his cane to the ground and made it fall solemnly. The runes of the cane moved from it to the ground and formed a circle around White, creating a bluish barrier that shielded the man as the Sky Devil reached him, making the shield get the attack that otherwise would have butchered him.

White stood at the other side while the hybrid patted the energy wall and inspected the runes. "Eastern, western or both... these are not runes in any human language, neither is this magic that comes from Earth. So tell me, Mr. Director; who are you?"

White cracked his neck, the eyes looking full of inhuman fury. "The Organizer."

"Organizer of what?"

White took something out of his pocket and threw it at him. Apparently, the barrier only worked into one direction. The Sky Devil caught it into one of his claw-like hands, looking at it curiously. It looked like a cube, if the cube had other one inside and the two of them were rotating over themselves continuously.

"That; is a Tesseract. It may provide an answer to you." White said, while the cubical tool started to project a hologram in which various images started to appear. As minutes passed and the images changed, the expression of the hybrid did too, from one of confidence to one of concern, and then interest. "I have to understand that none of my brethren know about this, right?" the Sky Devil asked.

Meanwhile, White's face had become adorned with a happy yet disturbing grin, clearly giving him an affirmative answer to his question. "So, do we have a deal?"

"Deal," the Sky Devil answered. _Or at least until I found a more suitable option, you manipulator_ ; the hybrid thought to himself. "You can tell my siblings that they can count on me and my presence, and I will play along with your game, but if this goes wrong…"

"It won't. It can't." White remarked.

"And if Jackie and the others interfere?" the hybrid asked.

" _When_ they interfere," White corrected, knowing perfectly how that family and the architect individually had such an aptitude to get in the center of all the big things. "It will be too late. In fact, they are going to be of great help, they already have." White hit the circle of runes with his cane and the energy shield disappeared, the runes returning to the cane. "And if they want to do something against my little plan, don't worry."

"I already have someone inside their little troupe…"

* * *

 ** _San Francisco_**

The sun was gone now from the skies of San Francisco. The Shoggoth's body, however, was enough to illuminate the street, as if the creature's flesh possessed light of its own. The mix of amber and purple that the monster produced casted an eerie pale light over all the presents, an effect that was mostly

Viper recharged her riffle as fast as she could; shooting another bullet towards the Shoggoth, this one impacting in one of its eyes and making it explode. The creature was quick to launch a tentacle towards the former thief, while Viper discarded her weapon as she saw that it was going to do little than slow her now. The tentacle smashed the ground as the former spy dodged, only for a blur to grab her and take her to the same spot where Jade was. There, a little dizzy, Viper trembled a little before controlling herself. The blur became Jackie just at her side, but before the archeologist could say something, Jade threw herself in the other woman's arms.

"Viper!" Jade shouted in joy. "What're you doing here?! When did you come to town?! Oh my God, you saving Jackie was so awesome!"

"Jade, I'm glad to see you, but..." Viper struggled a little between the teens arms. "I need to breathe..."

"Oh, yeah, sure! Sorry, hehe..." Jade remarked as she broke the hug. Viper, meanwhile, looked at Jade from head to toe taking in full the teenager that was in front of her.

"You're almost as big as me." Viper remarked in a warming voice, which made Jade smile. However, the mood of the situation was more or less ruined when the woman focused in Jackie instead of Jade.

"Hey," Viper greeted in a cold and awkward manner, taking her gaze from Jackie as soon as she could.

"What are you doing here?" was Jackie's retort. Of course he would answer like that...

"Saving your life." the former thief replied harshly.

"By appearing out of nowhere with a gun?" Jackie replied. "Quite convenient..."

"Well, if you want to play the food part of the 'free buffet' with whatever that is again...!" Viper replied pointing to the still unformed creature, but before she could continue Jade put both arms between the adults, separating them and putting a halt to the conversation.

"Okay! Can we please put the drama aside until we've dealt with the big bad monster that it's trying to eat us?!" Jade yelled, making the pair to end their rant.

"I think I can take care of that issue."

Jackie, Jade and Viper watched just to see a redhead woman approaching the creature.

"Who's that?" asked one of the policemen. "I thought we evacuated all the civilians."

"Isn't that..." Jackie started

"Po Kong!" Jade ended for him.

"There, there; you sniveling being; you voracious and mighty monster!" the mountain demon spoke trying to gain the monster's attention. The Shoggoth, looking at Po Kong and seeing nothing more than another body from which feed, started to approach her, gripping her borrowed body with a tentacle. The creature raised the Mountain Demon in the air and opened its mouth to consume her.

"There! Consume, eat, digest!" Po Kong yelled as she was already inside the monster's mouth and she was being reduced to pieces. _It's all I need to take control of you._

* * *

 ** _Inside the Shoggoth's mind_**

 _What is that? A sound? A voice? A visitor? New prey, new food, new memories… No, wait. It's different this time…_

Po Kong flew in her spirit form in the vast collection of chaotic memories that the mind of the Shoggoth was. The colors twirled and danced without any logical order or any sense of up and down, right or left; near or far. Po Kong found herself trying to cope with the incoming and apparently endless stream of images and memories, her spiritual form struggled, fighting back the most troublesome memories and psyches, and destroying or eating the weakest ones, Po Kong wanted for the main course to arrive.

The psyche, the mind itself of the Shoggoth raised then in front of the astral Mountain Demon; alarmed by the fact that it had added biomass to its being; but the mind that had come with the consumption of another body. In front of the Mountain Demon was a unformed mass of purple energy, a quartet of eyed looking at the spiritual form of the demon

 _Uhm!_ Po Kong grunted in confidence. _You aren't as impressive in mind as you are in body, creature! And I'm an expert into controlling and possessing minds; it won't be long before your body is mine!_

And as the two beings' minds collided and struggled to gain or maintain control of the body, the one corresponding to Niles Valmont looked from afar, safe. And for the first time in years, he felt a familiar thought coming onto him. The thought of getting the best of a situation with two other parts involved…

* * *

 ** _San Francisco_**

"What just happened?!"

Jade's question was shared by the majority of the presents. After Po Kong's human host had been eaten by the creature, everyone had thought that it would then change its attention to them, but then the creature just screamed in pain. Not in anger, not in order to instigate terror, but out of pain. The Shoggoth crumbled again to a puddle of slime, nothing there except for the floating eyes and organs.

Jackie and the others remained where they were, expecting for the monster to rise once again, but after waiting for more than ten minutes, nothing happened. Jackie, Jade and Viper approached the puddle of amber-purple tone.

"Do you think that Po Kong killed it with indigestion?" Jade asked; to which neither Jackie nor Viper were able to answer.

Tohru and Uncle arrived shortly afterwards, the big sumo carrying the old man over his shoulders. "Jackieee!" the elder shrieked. "Where's creature? Did you defeat it?! One more thing! Why is thief here?!"

Viper closed her arms and looked at Uncle, albeit unable to hide a little smirk. "After all these years, you know I'm not a thief anymore, and that I have a name, old man."

"Viper, it's nice to see you again." Tohru greeted politely. "When did you get in San Francisco?"

"Days ago, I had to… done something in the city. I heard commotion in the streets from my hotel, and came to see what was going on." Viper explained. "Saving some ungrateful life in the process."

Jackie mumbled something between his teeth. "The creature ate Po Kong and then crumbled into … _this_." he said pointing to the amount of no-slime. "I don't know what exactly… Ow!"

Uncle had dope slapped him again. After all those years, Jackie had thought that he would have grown accustomed to it, but he couldn't. "Nephew let creature to consume Mountain Demon?! Foolish!" Uncle inspected the not-slime, and just in case, he took a bit of it and put it in a little jar. "Creature seems energetic enough to keep fighting… the only explanation is that Po Kong has spiritually invaded the mind of the creature in order to seize control over it." Uncle pointed to Tohru. "Quick! We must exorcise Mountain Demon before she gains control over creature! Who knows what kind of monster could result of that union…" Uncle looked at the trio and the policemen around. "What are you looking at?! Give Uncle and Tohru space in order to work chi spell!"

The policemen started to move around the place, some of them going in the stations direction in order to help with the evacuations of the zone. Viper, Jackie and Jade maintained themselves apart from the two working wizards; the two adults leaning against a wall and the teen sat in the ground, legs crossed.

"What kind of 'something' did you have to do in the city?" Jackie asked.

"None of your business." Viper answered.

 _For God's sake, you two had a thing, it didn't work, get over it_ ; Jade thought, but she opted to not open her mouth.

* * *

 ** _The Shoggoth's mind_**

 _Why aren't you dying?!_

 _Shoggoth serve no one!_

 _I heard that the other seventeen times you said it!_

In no other moment of his life had Niles Valmont wished more for a bowl full of popcorn in order to get something to the mouth meanwhile he enjoyed a good show. Did he still have a mouth? He doubted it. Po Kong and the Shoggoth had got tangled in a battle of wills, and each time it looked like one was going to win, the other counterattacked. The Shoggoth didn't seem familiar with the tricks of the Demon Sorceress, and the Mountain Demon didn't seem familiar with how the monster's mind worked exactly, so taking control immediately wasn't an option. The two forces were fighting what seemed to evolve into an endless battle, tiring each other to no avail. That played well with Valmont's wishes. So he waited, patient, as the two forces fought and decreased in both power and resilience; until chains of green energy appeared after, enveloping Po Kong and pulling her out of the battlefield. Valmont tried to smile with his non-existent lips. _Right in schedule, Chan._

 _What?! No!_ Po Kong said as she was dragged from the Shoggoth's mindscape. _No! I don't want to go back! There is still so much to eaaaaat!_

Po Kong was successfully exorcised from the insides of the Shoggoth. After the battle had ended by disqualification, Valmont approached the mind that belonged to the beast. It had ended in a terrible estate, and even if the monster was holding its own against Po Kong, now it was clear to Valmont that if a new battle had to begin, the Shoggoth would be the one to lose.

 _She really did a number on you_. Valmont remarked friendly. The Shoggoth didn't answer, just eyeing Valmont's spiritual form as if it was nothing but an inconvenience. Yet the beast knew that it wasn't, it knew what was coming.

 _Can you understand me? Did any of your kind ever consider the possibility of having to understand us? I just want to thank you, really; even if you can't get anything I say. You reminded me for what I started fighting, for what I started to struggle. And I must thank you. You know, I think of it as kind of funny, the only being that I truly thank in all my life and it's a monstrosity like you. But you reminded me of something with your words, with your memories… Niles Valmont serves no one either._

At those words, Valmont's mental form attacked the one of the Shoggoth, ripping it and destroying it forever. The mighty creature in search for its freedom met them its end, at the hands of a fellow slave. Valmont then made the memories around him to stop circling and dancing, making them to follow a pattern this time. Taking control little by little, Valmont regained a confidence he had thought long gone.

 _Attention everyone! Under new management!_

* * *

 ** _San Francisco_**

Tohru held a fuming box, now containing the spirit of Po Kong. Uncle was looking at the puddle of slime with suspicious eyes, even after getting the Mountain Demon out of it. Exorcising the demon only meant that half of the problem was solved, and he was worried that at any second, the creature was going to reform itself and resume its attack over his family. But that situation didn't come, the puddle remaining where it was, as nothing but a puddle.

"Did we win?" Jade asked as she got near the puddle, pocking at it with a stick.

"I don't know." Uncle answered. "I haven't seen nothing akin to this creature in all my years of study. Tohru, does Japanese folklore have something like this?"

"There is no Yōkai that look like this, sensei." Tohru replied.

"Shendu called it Shoggoth." Jackie said, and the other men fell silent. "Apparently there is more than just one."

"Dos nephew believe into words of fire Demon?" Uncle asked slowly. "Shendu would say anything in order to gain anything in his favor… yet if there was no love lost between him and his own family, how could it be between him and a being like this?" Uncle took a finger to his chin. "This 'Shoggoth' could be an enemy of Shendu and his kind, a competitor for domination over Earth."

"Mr. Swallow seemed more interested into eating us all than to control us." Jade complained over the elder's explanation.

"Mr. Swallow?" Viper asked with a grin.

"Hey, I need to get tension out of this situation." Jade explained.

"Shendu talked about masters that this one apparently serves." Jackie explained.

Uncle sighed and rubbed his temples. "Ah… we may need to… to…" Uncle made a great effort to say what he was thinking, " _accept_ Shendu's offer of collaboration. Even if he will try to betray us."

"Well, I think I already did that." Jackie admitted, earning himself another dope slap.

"And nephew was foolish for doing so!" Uncle explained. "Demon Sorcerers bad and deceptive even for demonic standards!"

Jackie was going to point out the fact that Uncle had admitted that making a deal with Shendu was necessary just now, when suddenly the puddle trembled and started to reform. Every present fell in a combat position, Jackie ready to use his super speed once again in order to lift the creature from the ground and make it fall again, but instead of attacking or taking into its former form, the puddle started to concentrate and compress itself in one point, taking into a smaller, yet more understandable form.

Guards and blowfishes were held down as soon as the being in front of them took a humanoid shape, albeit still of amber-purplish slime. The being looked at his now humanoid hands and the organs and extra-eyes that it had now, and clenching his fist, the humanoid figure made the excess of stomachs, hearts, lungs, and eyes to dissolve, letting only the number of organs necessary for a human being. The excess of biomass was then derivated to the production of skin and the muscles, giving the newcomer a human appearance. And now the shape in front of them was recognizable, understandable, familiar.

"Valmont?!" Jackie asked in puzzled unbelief.

"Hello, Chan." The newly born Valmont said as he stretched his limbs, adjusting to the feeling of having a body again. Then he looked down and seeing that he was naked, he smiled awkwardly. "I suppose asking for clothes would be a bit too much, right?"

"How did you do that?!" Jackie asked as he readied his guard.

"Should I answer?" the former crime lord asked, tickling an eyebrow. "It has been a really… _confusing_ experience, you know? Losing my body, then almost losing myself…"

"Be ready, creature could be trying to fool us!" Uncle exclaimed, paying no attention to Valmont's words.

"The Shoggoth is gone, I assure you." Valmont raised one hand and quickly transformed it into one of the monster's slimy and purple tentacles. "Its strength is mine to do as I please now." he proclaimed as his hand shaped itself back to normal. "Now, if you aren't going to really give me new clothing…"

"Here is your clothing!" Jade said as he tossed a pair of pants she had apparently gotten from some policemen as the others talked. "Now please, cover _that_!"

"Thank you," Valmont said as he covered his modesty. "Now, I will take my leave, and…" Valmont started to say as he walked towards the station, just for Jackie to appear in front of him thanks to the power inherited from the Rabbit Talisman.

"If you think I'm going to let you of all people leave this place as if nothing had happened…" Jackie started to say, but then Valmont raised a finger in front of the archeologist's face, silencing him.

"But, my old friend Chan; I think you will." Valmont remarked smugly. "Look around you; wouldn't you be better if you helped the people that the Shoggoth harmed instead of fighting me and risking more lives? Even if I like my former human form, I still posses all the strengths and abilities of my former consumer. And we both know that the only way you could defeat me would be by harming me enough times so my regeneration couldn't save my life anymore." Valmont's smile widened. "So, let's make a deal here. If you let me go now, I'll never molest you or any of your relatives again, and I will limit me to eat only rats and other small animals of the tunnels and sewers. But if you insist in confronting me, I will fight to my last breath, although I doubt I need to breathe anymore. I haven't escaped the mind of that monstrosity just to spend the rest of my life, which I doubt of being able of naturally ending now, in a cell. So, what are you going to do, hero?"

Jackie looked at Valmont, his eyes narrowed in anger and frustration. This reminded him of the situation that had transpired the first time they had me, when Valmont had poisoned him with something that somehow, had rendered him a statue. This was a situation that only favored the pale blond man, with no other option available. Reluctantly, and clearly against his will, Jackie stepped aside and let Valmont walk.

"Thank you." the former crime lord said.

"Aiyah! What is nephew thinking?!" Jackie heard the voice of Uncle shrieking with disapproval. "We must not let evil British to escape with powers of mighty creature!"

"Uncle," Jackie addressed as he contained the incoming old man, stopping him from pursuing Valmont. "Uncle, he is right, we should focus in helping the people that had survived and that are wounded. Look, even Tohru, who despises Valmont, is containing himself. This battle ends in a draw."

Little by little, Uncle calmed down and stopped struggling to get at Valmont with his blowfish in hand. "Uncle doesn't like this. Valmont could be now heading to creature's masters in order to make a deal with them."

"Shoggoths serve no one, and neither do I," came Valmont's voice, who had turned to face the Chans once again. "I had spent too much time in the service of others, when I swore decades ago that I would only serve myself. But, if you need something more… Do you know with what have you been fighting? What almost destroyed you all? A dog, old man; nothing but a dog. Now, think for a moment, what kind of owners a dog like that has? And what kind of bosses those owners serve?" Valmont's gaze brightened in purple for a second. "Tell me Chan, what kind of Gods do you think they have? Focus in the war that it's coming, and leave me alone."

"Wait, what does that mean?" Jackie asked, but he found no answer, as Valmont had started to walk away again. "Valmont! What does that mean?!" and yet, no answer came as the former leader of the disbanded Dark Hand faded away, in the shadows of the night.

* * *

Two days passed with nothing remarkable to say except for the time the Chan family spent in the hospital. Not for any of them, of course, as the only wounds they had suffered had been minimal, with only Jackie needing to be bandaged in the ribs needed to be treated. The Chan Clan had, once again, survived a battle against a monster out of the cruelest of nightmares with no casualties.

The same couldn't be said about the people and the agents that had perished in the fight against the Shoggoth, or Captain Black's arm. After Valmont had disappeared, Finn had appeared moments later, running down the street and asking for medical help and an ambulance, and also quite confused about the ' _half-naked Big V_ ' he had just crossed. Vanessa had done everything in hand, but apparently the wound had been too grave, and the dirt of the station hadn't really helped that. At least she had stopped the bleeding from extending much, and Jackie was glad for that.

And yet, Captain Black had lost his left arm.

For entire hours Jackie had remained in his seat at the side of the bald man's bed; his eyes unable to leave the stump that had been left in exchange of the missing arm. People entered and left the room from time to time, from nurses, to doctors, and also various members of Section 13's staff, including Jade, who went in and out more so she could check in Jackie than in Black. The majority of them thanked the archeologist for being there, for having saved his and so many other lives.

And yet, Captain Black had lost his left arm.

After the first day after the operation, the sedatives and the fatigue wore off enough so Black could speak and at least drink and eat for himself. Jackie was there when the bald man woke up, even after how much Uncle and Tohru had insisted that the archeologist needed to rest too. The only one that had remained at his side without complaining or pleading for him to leave had been Jade.

"Uhm… Hello Jackie; hello Jade" Black greeted as he woke up from his slumber. He incorporated slowly and looked at his left side. "Ah… yes, I remember."

"Don't worry," Jade spoke. "I talked with Kepler, and he'll give you the most awesome and full of hidden weapons robotic arm he can make."

The two of them kept talking like that for hours until Black was forced by the nurses to sleep again; while Jackie just stared at how incredibly calmed Black was about what had happened to him. Jackie sighed and decided it was time to go home, in order to sleep. He wondered for a moment if Shendu would assault his dreams yet again, but he didn't paid mind to it. They had won, albeit by the split of a nail but they had won.

And yet, Captain Black had lost his left arm.

* * *

"Well, look at the bright side; now I can give you the number of pretty reasonable tailors!" Director White exclaimed as he visited Black in his room almost an entire day after Jackie had left. "Albeit mine are specialists in creating left-handed clothing, while yours should be right-handed. Maybe we could wear a giant jacket between the two!"

"Haha, very funny Joseph," Black deadpanned. "How are things going? Did the Chans get rid of the demon?"

"Po Kong is sealed with her siblings, yes." White answered. "And Mr. Fisher has been also successfully exorcised and send back home with a little compensation and a letter explaining a believable excuse for his absence from his job. I don't know exactly how we will handle the issue of Valmont being on the loose once again, or how our peers of the Compound are going to react, but we will think of something once you are out of here. Seriously Augustus, you know I can handle the fort, relax a little. I talk from my own experience, losing an arm can be pretty shocking." White looked at his sides and pulled something out of his jacket. "Here, I sneaked a chocolate bar inside this little Stalinist fortress." he said giving Black the sweet.

"Good grief, Joseph." Black said, albeit he took the chocolate. "Thank you…" he whispered as he put it under his pillow.

White laughed. "Well, if that's all you need, I will take my leave now."

"Wait, Joseph, I need to ask you a favor." Black stated, stopping the Director in his tracks.

"Oh? I'm not going to bring you cake or something, this has a limit." White cracked a joke as he moved his only index finger in front of Black's face as if he was an overprotective grandmother.

"No, no," Black said as he chuckled, but then he regained a more serious expression. "I need you to hold one of your sessions with Jackie."

White raised one of his eyebrows. "PTSD?"

"No, if that was the case Jackie could have never been apt for this job." Black stated. "I think he's just blaming himself, for this." the Captain explained as he pointed to his missing arm.

White nodded understandably. "I will see to it. Be sure to rest until you come back to the fort, Captain."

"Thank you for your efforts, Director." Black thanked as White exited the room and closed the door behind him.

There, in the hospital's hall, White made a sign to one lonely figure in order to follow him. The two of them entered an elevator and headed upwards.

"How's he doing?" Viper, now clad into a long pinkish dress asked of the Director.

"As tough as ever." White answered. "Do the Chans know of your reasons for appearing?"

"Jackie is suspicious." Viper answered. "But he can't put the pieces together, not yet. He will just let it pass with my explanation; I doubt that he really wants to speak with me in deep. Was that really necessary for me to follow them like that?"

"Miss Viper," the Director said. "That family has been a great asset against the 'Forces of Darkness' during these years; but no one is infallible, and that means there will come a time in which they won't be able to be at the right place in the right time, cope with what they are facing, that they will fail or, let's not want it, turn to the wrong side." White explained as the elevator stopped at the hospital's last floor, the door opened and held like that by the fat man's only arm as Viper exited it. "That's the reason I have you in my contact list, even if you refuse a fully operational position in the organization I direct. It's necessary to compartmentalize in order to attain the best results. That's the reason a secret 'Ace in the sleeve' is needed in these situations. And you are Section 13's, as long as I pay you, it seems." White pointed to the left part of the hall. "The fourth door on that side, as I promised the best I could find and the money could provide."

The door of the elevator closed and Viper headed towards the door White had pointed to. Entering it slowly and making as less noise she could, Viper closed the door. She was in a dark room now, windows closed so not much light could peer in. In the center of the room, was a lonely bed, and over it, connected to too much tubes and machines to be numbered, a mask that provided breathing; was a woman in his mid seventies, no hair in her head, and wrinkles adorning her face. She was sleeping, or more precisely, in a coma.

Viper took a seat at the bed's side and, careful to not meddle with the tubes connected to her, she took her hand. "Hey mom," Viper addressed the woman. "I hope your little trip from home to here was comfortable." Viper looked at the machines around her, beeping and giving data about how the woman's vitals were doing. "This place looks better to attend to you until I can find someone that can make a cure." Viper stood up and, carefully, planted a kiss over the sleeping woman forehead. "I know we had our differences, a lot of them in fact; and I know I really shouldn't have disappeared in thin air that day, but… I will compensate you, I will, I promise. I know you wouldn't be okay with me returning to steal things, and frankly I promised a girl I care a lot about not to do that anymore. You will like her, she's incredibly energetic, reminds me of dad sometimes. Just… just don't walk to any lights at the end of any tunnel until you woke up again. I will be back tomorrow; I have things to do at work now, mom. Good bye."

Viper exited the room as quietly as she had entered; leaving her mother with only the beeping of the machines to kept her in company. Instead of taking the elevator the former burglar took the stairs and headed down, walking slowly as she thought about her current situation. When White had appeared with the offering of a job in exchange of payment and treatment to her mother, Viper had been suspicious of the guy, mainly because he looked anything but normal. He had agreed to not put her in his list of operatives, but kept her in touch and doing things under the radar just in case. There was something she didn't like about that man, but Viper played along, even when he told her not to interfere even if Po Kong harmed innocents. And now she was going to keep spying on Jackie, of all people.

She supposed she was being a bit egoistic there, but she didn't repent for it, not until her mother was walking and breathing in her own again. In that moment, the relation with Section 13 would break, and she would just grab her money and retire into some place in Italy. _No, not Italy, you hate Italy, remember? That's where he broke up with you_ ; she reminded herself. Viper sighed as she reached the principal floor and exited to the streets of San Francisco. So what if she was fighting for her own gain, what if she was hiding information from Jade, what if she was being egoistic? His father used to have a saying for this kind of situations.

" _Listen now mockingbird, in this life you only have two things that really mater, and those are you and your code. Don't break the later, and fight for the wellbeing of the former. Don't trust more people than the ones you can count with the fingers of your hands. Because in this world we live in, in the end nobody serves no one but himself._ "

* * *

 **Author Notes: Whoah! That was a really complicated chapter to write, if I must be sincere. Mainly action for all you, but also some answers, and new questions (what a surprise!). Now to answer a couple of issues:**

 **To my usual Guest Reviewer Matt, thank you for your words at last chapter, and note that I actually made a shout out to the name you provided for the fusion between Paco and Hsi Wu, albeit that's not going to be the name he's going to have (I have yet to decide it). As for Viper's location, well, here she is; and the other characters you mentioned will end up showing as the story progresses, don't worry.**

 **Now, about the crossover with WITCH, there is where I wish you have an account in Fanfiction so we could PM. I was actually planning a crossover between the two series once, as I also like them both and for some reason they actually could work pretty well with each other. But for diverse reasons, I was unable to really put it together in a satisfactory manner, or create a plot that I liked or found consistent, and in the end I found myself writing this story instead, not that I won't get back to it in another moment, though. Some of the ideas I worked there can be found here, for example, the character of Joseph White was designed for and was going to be a villain also in that story, albeit he was going to be completely human there, which in here, he's clearly not. Also, what happens in this story's first chapter with the Demon Sorcerers and Hastur in the Netherworld is very similar to a scene I devised to kick-start the plot in the script for the other one. I hope these answers are satisfactory.**

 **Back to _this_ story, this chapter more or less concludes the opening arc for this fic, as next chapter will be the aftermath of this one and the opening of the next, and then we will head onto the Massachusetts Arc. Thank you all for reading, and leave a review in order to give me your impressions in this chapter.**

 **Bye, bye!**


	8. The first piece of domino

**Disclaimer: I don't own Jackie Chan Adventures; JCA and all its characters are the property of Phil Weinstein, Frank Squillace and Jackie Chan himself.**

 **A/N: Here I come again, thankful once more for the kind words of my reviewers and for the attention this piece of work is gathering. Thank you all for taking time to read this, I'm grateful for it. In another note, this story has now a TV Tropes page courtesy of magnificent Zim'sMostLoyalServant, so if any of you all wants to gave a look or contribute to the page you're free to do so! Anyway, this is a transition chapter in order to tie the former arc with the start of the next; so enjoy! As always, look at the end of the chapter for more notes.**

* * *

Jackie Chan Adventures

Out of the Corner of the Eye

Chapter eight

The first piece of domino

* * *

 **From the journals of Marcus Malone. Eight entry. December of 1947**

A year. I have spent here, living in Dunwich almost a complete year and it has passed over me as if it has been nothing but a week. I suppose time flies when you are happy. Happiness, the feeling is still quite strange to me. Lavinia and I are preparing our marriage now. Marry, I thought of it funny. I started this journal devastated; now I'm going to have a family. Family… that word and thought also sounds strange in my head. Sometimes I wonder if I will be a good father. I didn't have a good father myself, the pathetic drunkard always angry, always shouting, always criticizing. He was always criticizing me… I don't know if I will be able to rise to that challenge; but then I look at Lavinia and she smiles at me, whispers in my ear how much she loves me, and I feel as I'm able to take the moon between my hands and threw it out of orbit. Perhaps I should ask Ephraim for counsel about parenting, little Asenath seems pretty happy, but then again, she's just two years old. I think that Jie has a little brother too, maybe I should ask him… I don't really know.

The Whateley Project is progressing adequately too. Innsmouth and Dunwich had been completely integrated; same will be said about Arkham by the end of next year. Jie is making progress about expanding us to other countries (even if it's pretty hard to make contact with the 'Second World' as America has started to address the Soviet Union and its allies), and more and more people from our own have started to see reason and join our party. Miskatonic is becoming very prestigious between the people of Massachusetts; I suppose the propagandistic campaigns that I proposed to Carter and that Robert and I have designed are giving their fruits. Our dear Wizard Whateley (that's the nickname we ended giving him in our inner circle, he actually finds it fitting) often says that in a decade or so we should be as prestigious as Harvard. Of course, while the new teachers and members of the staff that we get every year have that reality as a priority, and the majority of the students come precisely for the quality of their classes, all of us know that the real Miskatonic operates down below its surface.

I must admit, the first attempts at the next phase of the Project were… difficult. The results back in early September were disastrous, and clearly not what we were intending. Lord Dagon was pretty helpful, (I hope you know who his lordship is) but after the first failures we agreed to let him and his family continue with the procedure we were implementing before in Innsmouth and Dunwich, that's not a problem. Slower, but the results are there. Upon discussing, we all agreed that we needed someone more 'versatile' and more willing to go to… necessary extremes sometimes. So of course, our attention turned to The Defiler (I hope you know who this Lord is too, I'm not going to risk naming him here, it could be troublesome for you). His Lordship appeared before us in all his glory, kind of weird for human standards, but by this point I have acknowledged our species as unable to understand anything superior to it. The host we used for the invocation was nothing but a troublemaker of Arkham, so no one of value was lost. I must admit that his lordship was pretty capable of communication with us, speaking eloquent English, even if following the sentences was a bit hard, due to each one of the mouths he had in his palms not letting the other finish. He was enthusiastic to participate in the Project so we proceeded to the room designated for the rituals.

The girl Robert had selected as the next candidate was expecting for us all there; no older than sixteen years old. She had been (of course) initiated in our rites and knew perfectly to what she was offering herself to; none of us would have forced her. She greeted the Defiler with the utmost respect, and we began the ritual. The chants were done as always, the words of the _Necronomicon_ echoing through the chamber John and Randolph had built under Miskatonic. I watched in awe as my mouth and my companions' moved in their own, filled with the words of the book. The Defiler approached the girl, the lamb. She, as we had indicated her, waited and accepted the headless obese being's presence. The Defiler pointed both palms towards her and his mouths opened. From each one, three tongues exited and extended. Between the chants my eyes focused and looked better at the scene, and saw how each tongue turned into a penis. Then each penis became a tentacle.

The Defiler laughed.

And the girl screamed.

* * *

 ** _Section 13_**

"Are you comfortable, Mr. Chan? Do you want something? We have tea, coffee, raw warm milk, soda, cookies, or these little sweets that one of the members of the staff makes in his free time…"

Jackie watched as Director White pointed to each one of the drinks or snacks that were scattered over the table that separated them both. White was sitting into a fairly normal armchair at one side, while Jackie was resting over a comfy and soft couch at the other. Inspecting the room they were in from his spot, Jackie could see that it was completely different from the others he had seen in Section 13, and that included both the Director's and the Captain's offices. This room in particular lacked the ominous feeling of the Director's, or the pragmatic disposition of Black's. It seemed completely designed to be comfortable. However, there was something that didn't fit in that feeling of comfortableness that the room possessed, and that was Jackie himself.

The archeologist wasn't resting over the couch as he was supposed to, instead sitting very next to the border of the seat, body firm and ready to react, his back not even touching the couch. In a lay man's terms, Jackie was completely tense. White had noted this too, and was trying to take the martial artist in a conversation in order to make him release a bit of tension.

"So? Anything you like?" White asked.

"No, Director. Thank you anyway." Jackie answered.

"More for me then, I suppose. I think I will try the cookies with the coffee." White said as he served himself a cup of the dark brown liquid and took a couple of cookies from a bowl, sinking one of them in the cup of coffee and taking it out impregnated of coffee, taking it to his mouth. Jackie looked quite stunned at how the Director seemed more concentrated into serving himself coffee and eating cookies with his only hand instead of Jackie and his reason for being there.

"Uhm… excuse me, Mr. White, but shouldn't we start with the session you talked me about?" Jackie asked the fat man. "It's not that I want to pressure you, but I have a meeting later today."

White ate the last of the cookies he had taken and took a couple of sips from his cup of coffee, reclining in his armchair. "You won't abandon this room until we talk. We won't talk until you have relaxed, because we basically can't talk properly until that happens. You aren't relaxed. Can you do the math?"

"I am relaxed," Jackie grunted.

"Really?" White took another sip from his coup. "Because it seems to me that you are expecting some kind of attack, or so say your body language. And I know that you know that, because you are trained in that entire philosophy about ' _control every part of your body_ '. So sir properly the couch, breathe deeply and relax."

"So we can speak," Jackie stated. "Can't you just give me some pills, or counsel, or…"

"Psychiatrists give pills, I'm a psychologist." White explained. "And you will discover, Mr. Chan; that one of the most important parts about giving proper counsel and conducting a proper psychological analysis and intervention is talking, as simple as it sounds."

Jackie doubted what to do for a couple of seconds before reclining completely in the couch, back against it, and exhaling all the excess of air he had been maintaining inside himself. He noted how his muscles relaxed a bit, the tension keeping tem stiff disappearing little by little. White watched this and smiled, putting the now almost empted cup of coffee in the table again.

"Good," the Director said, his deep voice helping Jackie to focus. "From where do you want us to start talking?"

"I don't know." Jackie answered sincerely. "I don't think I should be doing this just because Captain Black asked you to do so, Director."

"Mr. Chan, I don't want you to think this is some kind of favor I'm doing for you because you are special." White stated. "Every soldier is frequently exposed to an enormous quantity of stress, and you are no different. All the survivors from your battle three days ago had passed over that very spot you are sitting in. This is rudimentary, and frankly, I think that I have been an idiot until now for not offering you, or the rest of your family for that matter, this option."

Jackie kept his eyes focused over the Director. "But I'm no soldier."

"The more reason we should be doing this," White told him. "Let's try again; what is the first thing that comes to your head when you think about the attack?"

"Fear." Jackie answered.

"Fear, yes." White said as he pulled a little notebook out of his pocket and then started to write in it. "It's a basic emotion, a common emotion. Were you afraid of the creature?"

Jackie crossed his arms over his chest. Ah, defensive position once again. The archeologist looked at the ceiling, thoughtful. "No," he answered finally. "Not afraid at the creature or anything in specific, it was just fear." Jackie thought and elaborated a little more. "I was afraid of what it could do."

White wrote something more in his notebook. "Were you afraid of losing your family? Of someone getting hurt?"

Jackie didn't answer. His body stiffened for a few seconds before relaxing once again.

"Mr. Chan, if you don't want to answer, you don't have to." White stated. "This is not an interrogation; you are free to keep your thoughts for yourself if you want to."

Jackie breathed in and out in order to get tension out of his muscles again, and put his arms at his sides. "No, sorry Director, this is… I can't find the words."

"Don't get frustrated, you are doing it very well." White told him. "Think and then answer. We aren't in a hurry."

"I suppose I was afraid of losing my family." Jackie answered after a few moments of slight meditation. "Since the moment all this ' _Fight against the Forces of Darkness_ ' began, I never wanted for it to continue. But then monsters started to pick personal grudges against my family, including my at the time _twelve year old_ niece who then make her dream job out of fighting those monsters, and I knew that I couldn't get out of the situation. And then all this happens again now, and I feel so useless that…"

"Stop there." White said, raising his only hand. "Why do you feel useless, Mr. Chan?"

Jackie shrugged. "Look at what happened in Mexico with Guerra, look at what happened in the subway with Captain Black. If not for others saving me, I would be dead already."

White raised an eyebrow as he wrote more notes down. "But you know that's how teamwork works, right? Mr. Chan; is fairly normal for loss people in battle, that's something that everyone that signs for this job knows, even more after all this ' _magic business_ ' became something that we dealt with in a normal basis."

"But I'm not a soldier, Mr. White." Jackie told him again. "I never was."

"I know," White answered, as he wrote something in a complete different page of the notebook. Then he ripped it out and lent it to Jackie. And this is my recommendation."

Jackie took the paper and read it. "Do your job as a vacation?" he asked, quite dumbfounded.

"You have said that you aren't a soldier, and that's true. Mr. Chan, what happened to Augustus wasn't your fault; neither has been anything that has transpired during the last days, it's impossible to see that kind of things coming." White explained. "It's clear that you need to let stress to go out, and what better option that doing what you actually are meant to do? Go and search for some weird relic in some pyramid or something, bring your family, disconnect a little from all this madness."

Jackie pondered this in his head. Mr. Banski would arrive at Uncle's shop that very same afternoon, and he would probably offer him the job that he couldn't offer him back in Brazil. "Maybe you are right." Jackie said as he put the piece of paper in his pocket and stood up from the couch. He extended his hand and shook the one of the Director. "Thank you, Mr. White."

"I'm here to serve, Mr. Chan." White said as a farewell as the archeologist exited the room. As soon as Jackie disappeared, White took another couple of cookies and served himself another cup of coffee.

 _I must admit, this entire situation with the Demons has been quite distracting,_ White thought as he drank the hot liquid. _But the results have been nothing but favorable, I must admit._ He looked at the door that had just closed behind Jackie. _My part is done for the moment; everything is ready to start unfolding. It's time for the old timers to take their turn and recite their lines in this play._

* * *

"Now listen here, SkepticalMagister1639; there are verifiable facts that probe the existence of magic, while there is no proof of alien existence…" Stephanie said aloud as she wrote down the same words in her computer's keyboard. "And unless you show me an exact, clean image of whatever your teenage daughter saw at Stonehenge I won't believe it."

She pressed one of the keys and the message published itself in the forum she was currently having a discussion in under the nickname JChanAwesome3. She wondered who exactly the other two under that nickname were. As the answer from her interlocutor appeared in the screen and she took a couple of sip from a soda at her side, she sighed internally. "Seriously? That photo is so blurred that I can't tell if it's a flying saucer or a Frisbee!"

"Goldie-girl," someone called at her back.

"Whoa!" Stephanie said in surprise as she almost fell out of the chair she was in. "What the-? Mr. Uncle? How are you inside my room?!"

The Chinese elder, standing in the middle of the room of the teenager pointed to the door. "Walking," Uncle answered.

 _Jade and him really are related_ , Steph thought with disdain. "What do you want?"

"Niece told me that you are very good with these new technologies," Uncle said as he pointed to Stephanie's computer. "Uncle needs you to do him a favor."

"What kind of favor?" Steph asked in curiosity.

"Uncle needs you to search for everything that you can find about White-man." Uncle stated as he closed his hands at his back.

"The Director?" Stephanie asked in disbelief. "Why?"

"Uncle is unable to feel chi coming from him," the elder explained. "And he also couldn't feel anything from creature of the subway. There could be a relation."

"Aren't you exaggerating a bit?" Steph asked. "For what Jade told me, the monster you fought was kind of inhuman. The Director maybe doesn't look like the most normal person in the world, but he seems human. And if I do this at his back I could lost my position, or my job, or be considered a traitor… And that's not counting all the kind of complicated software and firewalls I would have to go against if I want to enter his personal servers."

"Is that a 'no'?" Uncle asked.

"Are you kidding?" Steph said with a grin. "I love challenges! Maybe it turns out that the Director has been some kind of demonic servant all along, albeit that sounds kind of ridiculous when you think about it."

 _Jade and her really are similar_ , Uncle thought fondly. "Thank you very much, Goldie-girl."

"Yeah, but I'm not doing this for free." Stephanie remarked. "So… can you get me some kind of photograph of Jackie as a kid? It would go so well with the rest of my collection." Stephanie said as he showed him an album full of Jackie's photos.

Uncle raised a confused and slightly disturbed eyebrow. _Maybe not as similar to Jade as I thought._

* * *

 ** _An abandoned warehouse…_**

Life hadn't been kind to Strikemaster Ice and his two companions, MC Cobra and DJ Fist, as of lately. After all the fiasco working for Drago years ago, the trio of martial artists turned criminals had spent a lot of time in prison, just to get out due to a combination of good behavior and the fact that their lawyer was able to convince the judge carrying their case that there really wasn't a law that punished being the servant of a half-human half-dragon-demon man and collecting Demon chi, so they only had to pay sentence for what they had done to Seattle's Space Needle and other properties. God bless morally ambiguous attorneys!

When they had exited prison, the trio had thought to put as much distance as possible between them and Jackie Chan, but they had found themselves with not really much economic power, with the payment of the lawyer and all… So they had thought that founding an easy job, get some money and then go to Europe, or something. But, as Strikemaster had put it, better serve the devil than to serve cold pizzas again, so of course they had turned to some crime boss. They had found the ideal employer in the form of a small mobster that lead a small band specialized in heists and robberies and that was kind of obsessed with his yo-yo. Apparently, he wasn't really in his best moment either, as some of his goons had told the trio that years ago he had his ass beaten by an old man and an old lady. He received the Ice Gang with open arms.

But then everything went to hell, of course! Just when they were planning a robbery, some blond British weirdo clad into a greenish suit had appeared in the warehouse that they used as their base of operations. He had looked at them, and had asked to see the boss. The yo-yo man had approached the British weirdo, and had asked about what he wanted. What had the British said? That he wanted his men to follow him instead! So logically, the boss had laughed, and continued to laugh in this moment, in the British's face.

"Are you serious?" the boss asked. He clasped his fingers and all his goons took a weapon behind him, the Ice Gang the only exception, as they considered themselves to be weapons already. "You're outgunned here, man."

"I seriously doubt that," Valmont answered. "But if you want to open fire, go ahead, I suppose bullets are cheap to you."

"Don't say I didn't warn you. Boys!" the boss yelled as he turned around and walked away, playing with his yo-yo. "Make an Emmental cheese out of him!"

The goons opened fire, while Valmont remained in his spot, totally calmed. The bullets hit and pierced him, the guns emptied as they left a tremendous number of holes in his body… which quickly regenerated, including the ones in his green suit.

"Hey boss-man;" Strikemaster Ice told the man of the yo-yo. "I think that you got the wrong cheese brand."

"What?!" the boss yelled. "How did you do that?!"

"In the same way I'm going to do this," Valmont said as both his arms transformed each one into four tentacles, which quickly proceeded to spin around and hit the goons, sending them flying against the walls. Some of them tried to fight back, but Valmont dispatched them as if they were nothing. The yo-yo of the boss fell to the ground as he saw how the thirty men he had assembled had been reduced to whining crybabies in the ground.

"Yo Ice, do we do something?" MC Cobra asked of the leader of the trio, and DJ Fist put into an inquisitive expression.

Strikemaster shook his head. "Nah, I wanna see how this plays out."

The tentacles shortened and became Valmont's arms again. As the British man walked towards the boss slowly, the Ice Gang getting out of the way, the man of the yo-yo looked how his body lost the ability to move out of sheer terror. "What the… what the hell are you?!"

Valmont adjusted his tie, and looked at the man. "Isn't it obvious? I'm the boss now." Valmont said as he punched the man, sending him flying a couple of meters before he landed unconscious in the warehouse's floor. "And they say that a diet based on rats and stray cats and dogs doesn't make you healthy."

"Man! That was awesome!" Strikemaster said as he and the rest of the gang approached Valmont. "Kind of the freaky type of awesome, but I'm not against that!"

"And you three are?" Valmont asked.

"Yo yo yo, we're the Ice Gang, dude!" Strikemaster Ice said. "We're the best kung-fu fighters and henchmen you can find in this side of the country, man! Name's Strikemaster Ice!" the shortest man in the trio said. "These are my buddies, Mc Cobra," he said pointing to the tall, slim man with purplish hair.

"Yo!" MC saluted.

"And DJ Fist," Ice said as he pointed to the big man, who simply nodded as a greeting. "He doesn't speak too much. He lets his fist to do the talking, man."

 _It's almost as if I just found a trio of Hak Foo-s_ , Valmont thought. "And what do you do here?"

"We were kinda looking for a job, but since you just stomped in the boss and the others;" Strikemaster explained. "It seems that you are the one with the crown now, boss-man."

"And that freaky stuff with the tentacles was incredible!" MC cobra stepped in the conversation. "Man, I would kill for that kind of power! Reminds me of the old days under D–man's command!"

"D-man?" Valmont asked.

"He means Drago." Strikemaster explained. "He was a bit of harsh with us, but he gave us awesome dragon powers! Then he and his pops were sucked away by some wicked portal-thing."

 _Oh yes, now I remember, Shendu's son_ ; Valmont thought as he remembered that he had once offered his services to the lizard once, out of sheer desperation. Because the last deal that he had done with a dragon had turned out just fine. _But to think we could have something like that in common… forget Hak Foo, these are just more combat-oriented versions of Finn, Ratso and Chow; and I really could use a bit of help._

"So, now that you got the power, what's next step boss?" MC asked. "Just to be clear, we kinda have some complaints about all that 'Taking over the World' thing."

Strikemaster elbowed him, but Valmont didn't mind for the purple haired man's doubts. "I don't want to take over the world; that would be stupid."

"And what's the plan then?" Ice asked now.

"I plan to use my newfound powers and your assistance, if you say that you are so willing to work for me, in order to gather as much money and power as possible. Then, I will storage it in the safest place I can find so when this world becomes hell in… I don't know… a couple of moths more or less; I can remain at the top."

"Wait, so no search for wacko powers? No wanting to take revenge over someone?" Strikemaster Ice inquired, and then looked at MC Cobra first and to DJ Fist next. The three of them smiled. "We're in!"

Valmont smiled pleased. It seemed that luck was in his side as of lately. However, this three were just humans, and that could be a problem with the kind of actions he wanted to take. But they had admitted that they found his powers cool… an idea popped inside Valmont's head then.

"Do you have some kind of transport?" the British ma asked.

"We got a truck outside," MC answered.

Valmont pointed to him. "Bring it to the entrance. And you two," he addressed Strikemaster and DJ Fist. "Help me putting all these ones inside." Valmont said as he gestured towards all the unconscious men in the floor.

"What for… eh… how do we call you, boss?" Ice asked.

"Call me Valmont," the British man said. "As for what we need them, we are going to exchange them for some upgrades for you three."

"Cool," Ice muttered as he and DJ Fist started to pull the unconscious men to the entrance. "And how's gonna that to be done, V-man?"

Valmont smiled as he made his right hand to rotate 360 grades over itself. "Let me tell you about some incredibly advanced and intelligent creatures that are called Mi-Go…"

* * *

 ** _Dreaming…_**

"Ah… all the family has come to see me, what a pleasure." Shendu said as a mockery to the whole Chan clan, the four of them standing in the leafy forest of Parg, in the Dreamlands. After having discussed about their battle with the Shoggoth, all of them had accorded that they needed as much information as they could find, and so their only option was Shendu. So Jackie, Jade, Uncle and Tohru had decided to sleep in the same room, trying to get the same result that Jackie and Jade had achieved after getting rid of Dai Gui. The four had appeared into a similar room to the one that Jackie had appeared in during his brief loss of consciousness during the battle of the Shoggoth, and then had crossed a door to the Dreamlands, where Shendu had, apparently, been waiting for them.

"Does Shendu want to try and push his luck more than necessary?" Uncle demanded violently.

"You can't harm me here, old man." Shendu's astral form hissed. "In fact, I doubt that any of you can harm me in the slightest."

"Wanna bet?" Jade asked as she made a katana appear from the ground.

"How did you do that?" Tohru asked of his friend, to which the teenager rolled her eyes.

"It's a dream, Tohru." she explained, as if creating matter was a feat easy to understand. "I can't understand how I'm the only one that can do this."

"Maybe is because of your wild imagination," Jackie theorized.

"Can everyone focus in Fire Deeeemon?!" Uncle demanded, getting the three of his familiars to look at him.

"Sorry," the three of them apologized.

Shendu, meanwhile, was looking suspiciously at Jade as he floated in the air. He had seen people do that same thing; creating weapons, objects or even creatures out of thin air. But everyone that he had met had told him that you have to be an experienced dreamer in order to accomplish those feats so easily. Then again, that kid had survived quite the feats in the past, so he shouldn't be surprised. And yet…

"Shendu, what did you call us for?" Jackie asked the Fire Demon.

Shendu was taken out of his thoughts by the man's words, focusing in the four humans in front of him again. The draconic demon narrowed his eyes. "As I said before to you and your niece, Chan;" Shendu started. "I need your help."

"What for?" Tohru asked next.

"As you may have discovered by now, the creature that you faced back in the waking world is like nothing you have faced before."

"You sure? It reminded me a bit of your sister, with the tentacles and the ability to change shape and all…" Jade taunted, to which Jackie hit her slightly in the shoulder.

"Don't antagonize him, Jade." Jackie told his niece.

Shendu paid no attention to the girl's words and kept talking. "And I suppose that you have grown aware of the fact that my siblings are now free of the Netherworld."

"Yes, we are aware." Uncle said. "Does Fire Demon really posses some kind of information that we don't know already? Because Uncle is starting to find him unworthy of an alliance."

"Wait! There's more!" Shendu spoke. "The reason my siblings ended in their current situation was because something destroyed their physical forms."

Tohru and Uncle exchanged a worried look. Their suspicions of a stronger evil being behind the current situation had turned out to be true. And something able to _destroy_ seven out of eight Demon Sorcerers brought a lot of frightening implications to the table.

"So this new evil destroyed your siblings." Tohru said. "How did you escape that fate?"

"Because I didn't ask for it." Shendu explained. "The… King in Yellow, that's how it's called, or at least how it calls itself, or himself; I don't know exactly what gender it possesses… He didn't want to free none of us at first, but when my siblings asked for it, he granted their wish… in the most literal way. But that was just an extra; he was interested in you, Chan."

"In me?" Jackie asked, surprised. Why did every force of darkness in the universe have to pick an interest in him?!

"More precisely in the idea of humanity being able to fight and defeat my brethren and me than in you exactly. That monster seemed thrilled with the idea of finding humans able to fight us to the point you did." Shendu continued his explanation. "He appeared out of nowhere, crippled my son in order to attain information, and then crumbled my siblings into dust with a simple thought. I don't really care about my siblings, but my son, my property, has been reduced to nothing but a man whispering unintelligible madness in the Netherworld! I don't tolerate that! I demand revenge!"

 _Whoa, he thinks about Drago as property?_ ; Jade thought. _No wonder dragon boy wanted to make a name of his own._

"And you need our help for that?" Jackie asked. "Just for revenge?"

"My offer is one of mutual benefit, Chan." Shendu told him. "I get my revenge, and you can get rid of yet another menace to your world."

"And you also get competition out of the way if you get another chance out of the Netherworld," Jade protested. "Yeah, so basically you want for us to do all the heavy lifting."

"I must admit that my current condition, trapped in the Netherworld as I am, is far from the ideal, and since none of you would be willing to open a portal for me to be freed," Shendu said as he eyed each member of the family. "This will have to do the deal."

As he had done with Jackie during their brief encounter, Shendu manifested the spheres of light that were without doubt the powers of the Talismans, although now only eleven were circling in front of Shendu, since the power of the Rabbit remained inside of Jackie.

"I offer you the possibility of taking one power each, as I offered to Chan before. You can take the one of your own election." Shendu stated.

"You won't give us more than one to each of us?" Jade protested. What a shame, she had already thought of some epic Talisman combinations...

"I refuse to give up all my powers just because we have a truce, child." Shendu hissed. "The fact that my physical form remains in that void doesn't make me safe, the King in Yellow could come back anytime. And of course, without the Sheep Talisman, I wouldn't be able to travel to the Dreamlands."

"This arises several questions," Tohru spoke. "You said that this King in Yellow appeared in the Netherworld, gathered information about Jackie and humanity from you, then obliterated your siblings and abandoned the place. Why? How? With what intent? Does he even have a name?"

"I don't know that myself." Shendu admitted, albeit Tohru knew that he was hiding information. "Much of this situation remains as mysterious to me as it does for you. But I know of one thing, and tat's that there is more."

"More?" Jade asked. "More of what?"

"More of them," Shendu answered. "More like the King in Yellow. I hear, in the conversations of the Dreamlands. I hear, as I spy the people, the creatures that live here. I hear names; names of places, of beasts, of Gods. I didn't even know that they existed until now." Shendu made a pause, and for a moment Jackie could see something in the demon's eyes. Fear? Doubt? A mix of the two? Shendu seemed to gather bravery inside of him. "They are called Great Old Ones; and the King in Yellow presented himself as _Hastur_."

Something happened then to Shendu's astral form. Something very similar to a shiver ran through it, but instead of trembling, the long Chinese dragon winced in pain, and for a moment Jackie saw little cracks forming in the astral body of the Fir Demon before they healed.

"What was that?" Jade asked.

"Pain," Shendu said. "I can't say that thing's name of remember its form without suffering. Every time I do it feels as my mind looses a bit more of itself."

 _Hastur_. The name longed in the air for a few moments. Albeit Jackie's and the others' heads didn't hurt as Shendu's, mainly due that their psyches didn't have an image that associate with the name, a memory that their minds could link to the King in Yellow. And yet, the name left a sensation around, as if everything had dried a bit, as if everything had rotten faster than it should have.

Shendu eyed the Chan Clan once again. "Everyone in the Dreamlands acts as if something horrible is about to happen at every moment, Chan; and I believe them. I don't know what is coming, but I'm certain of one thing. This time the world is not in peril of being conquered, is in peril of being destroyed. So you either accept my offer now and we try to survive together, or we each die alone."

Every pair of eyes turned then to Uncle. The elder had remained almost in complete silence since Shendu had started his explanation, and now it was the moment for him to speak. He knew perfectly that no one in his family would question his decision, that he was the one with the last word in all this. But he had made his mind clear. Shendu was right, this needed to be done. This 'Hastur', his appearance and powers… this had to be it, the feeling of dread he had felt that night. Uncle sighed. _Forgive me, Master Fong_ ; Uncle thought. _I'm about to make a pact with a Demon Sorcerer, a force of pure evil, but it's in the name of a greater good._

"We agree to your terms, Shendu." Uncle spoke. "From now on, you and this family are allies."

The creepiest of smiles appeared then in Shendu's face, clearly indicating that the situation had turned exactly as he wanted. "Well, then it's a deal. But as I said before, you aren't getting out of here empty-handed," the Fire Demon said, making a gesture to the eleven spheres of light still circling and floating in the air. "Choose as you please."

"Dibs on the Dragon!" Jade exclaimed before anyone else could make a move.

Shendu's eyes narrowed, a part of him remembering the last time he had seen the girl holding that power, and how much it had hurt. "If you think I'm going to I'm going to give _you_ the power that rightfully belongs to me over all the others, then…"

"Oh no, give her the Dragon," Uncle said, earning a slight scold from Shendu, a gesture only mitigated by his surprise. "What? You said that we could choose as we pleased, and the power of combustion is one of the strongest you posses, for not to say _the_ strongest. Do you want my family to beat this King in Yellow? Yes? Then give niece power of Dragon Talisman!"

Shendu didn't say anything, but after a few moments he made one of the spheres to move towards Jade's chest, entering it. The girl glowed a bit after being injected with the power, and then the glow died out. "It's done," Shendu stated. "Next one."

Tohru was next, choosing the power of the Pig for himself. In normal circumstances, Shendu would have thought that the sumo would have chosen that power in order to have the ability to be able to attack from a distance, but the Fire Demon knew perfectly what was going on. His suspicions grew stronger when the old man chose the power of the Horse for himself. Uncle eyed the demon for a second as he was injected with that power. Ah, he knew that the demon knew.

 _Not only taking my powers, but the most offensive ones, the ones that I use more_ ; Shendu thought. _And without the Horse, even if I remain immortal thanks to the Dog, I can't heal any wound_.

 _This way we will not only gain power, but also weaken Shendu when his inevitable betrayal comes_ ; Uncle thought too.

"I will try and gather more information about these Great Old Ones, and make contact with all of you if I find something interesting." Shendu said as the remaining eight spheres returned to his astral form. "Now, I think that your time for waking up has come."

And the dream ended.

* * *

 ** _Waking World. Uncle's Rare Finds_**

The four members of the Chan Clan woke up in one of the rooms of the antique shop, each one having slept in a couch, or in Uncle's case, a simple chair. They stretched their limbs as they stood up slowly.

"Well, who's up to a little test?" Jade asked as she clapped her hands. As she separated them, a little flame-ball was between them. She couldn't avoid giggling like a child a little. _Finally! I have my own superpower, and it's the coolest of them all!_ , she thought.

"Be careful Jade," Jackie told her. "I don't want you to burn Uncle's shop down by accident."

"Geez, relax Jackie; I'm not going to become the next Fire Lord," Jade retorted.

 _Relax, yeah, that was the idea_ , Jackie thought. _I wonder when Mr. Banski will arrive. I yet have to comment this to them…_

"Sensei?" Tohru's concerned voice took Jackie and Jade out of their conversation and thought. Uncle was still sitting in his chair, arms over his knees and head looking down. "Sensei, are you alright?"

"There is something wrong," Uncle said. "These Dreamlands, this Hastur Shendu spoke about, these Great Old Ones… Uncle doesn't know anything about them, Uncle hasn't seen anything like that being described in any book, any scroll… And Shendu called them Gods. Gods! Not Demon, not Oni or Monster, God. Uncle doesn't know how to fight Gods!"

"And the same you could have said about Tarakudo a decade ago," Tohru spoke, tranquilizing him. "Sensei, we will find a way. Humanity always finds a way, that's the reason we have come this far."

At that moment the bell of the shop rang. The sound made everyone in the room to look into the door's direction, and uncle raised a confused eyebrow "Customer? At this hour of the day? Don't people know how to read? It says cloooosed in the door!"

"Don't worry, Uncle; that's probably Mr. Banski." Jackie told him. "We agreed to see each other at this hour."

"Who is Mr. Banski?" uncle inquired.

"A man from Brazil the university got me in contact with," Jackie explained as he walked towards the door. "For a job offer… ow!"

"Job offer?!" Uncle said, having got up, approached Jackie and dope slapped him. Sometimes Jackie wondered if rage was the thing keeping the old man still alive instead of coffee or tea. "Doesn't nephew know in which situation are we in? Demons of Sky, Wind, Water and Moon are still at free! There is a new plane of existence _in_ existence now! One more thing! There is at least one evil targeting the safety of our world!"

"I know!" Jackie yelled, taking each present by surprise. "But I am an ARCHEOLOGIST! I didn't spend all those years studying and investigating, enduring the shenanigans of petulant teachers, to not being able to do my job now! And Mr. Banski has made the effort to come here all the way from Brazil to offer this job to me!"

"How dare you to speak so haughtily to Uncle!" the elder yelled too, quite offended.

"Okay, everyone hold it!" Jade interrupted. "We breathe deeply, and calm down… and now, uncle Jackie is going to open that door, and everyone is going to be polite to whoever crosses it."

Uncle and Jackie grumbled something between their teeth, and the archeologist retook his way to the door.

"Jade," Tohru whispered in the teen's ear. "Did you know what that was about?"

"I don't know," the teen answered in whisper too. "But he had a meeting with the Director wile you sealed Po Kong in the vault. I think it was, you know, a psychological meeting."

Tohru understood. It must be hard for someone like Jackie, especially after all this time. Four years had gone without the interference of any evil force in their lives, without any worldwide threat to arise. That must have made Jackie to grow accustomed to the time of peace… and the recent events must have remembered him that, in the end, he didn't want to be part of this entire 'Fight against Evil' thing. Captain Black's current situation wasn't helpful with it. If needed to be, Jackie would always stand against any evil, of that the sumo was certain; his friend was too good to let any evil deed to go unpunished in front of his eyes. But that didn't meant that he enjoyed this kind of life, that he was one of those archetypical heroic characters of old literature, bent into the extermination of any foul creature and that were revealed to be the Chosen One at the end of the second act of the book. No, except for the fighting abilities, Jackie was just your average everyman; and that was one of his greatest strengths, but also one of his greatest weaknesses.

The door of the shop opened then, taking Tohru back to reality and revealing a man in wheelchair behind it.

"Mr. Banski?" Jackie asked.

"The very same. Jackie Chan, right? Basil Banski, at your service." The man in the wheelchair said as he extended a bandaged hand for Jackie to shake it. Bandages; a lot of them actually, that was the most defining trait of the man that was now entering the shop. Bandages covering all of his body, from head to toe. All the presents were certain that they travelled all the way under the man's otherwise impeccable white suit. From the orifices that adorned his face and that served for his eyes, nose and mouth; Jackie could appreciate slight wrinkles in his face, adorning the burns. Burned, the man was burned, scarred. Did the burns cover all his body? Or were just scattered, focused over certain parts? Anyway, the thought of it made all the presents to flinch in varying degrees.

"And who would these people be?" Banski asked, pointing to the rest of them. His voice sounded old, terribly old. If asked about his age, Mr. Banski would answer that he already was forty in the forties.

Jackie made a clumsy gesture and pointed to each one of the presents. "Ah, sorry. These are my Uncle, our shop assistant Tohru and my niece Jade."

Banski greeted the three of them with a little nod of his head, like emulating a reverence. In Jade's case, for some strange reason, he really made the superior part of his body to bend, his eyes looking at her as if scanning the teenager. There was something glimmering in those eyes. Curiosity? No, it was more similar to… admiration?

 _Why is he looking at me like that?_ ; Jade thought, a bit uncomfortable. _I hope he isn't some kind of pervert._

"Do you want for us to have a more private conversation, or…?" Jackie asked of the man in the wheelchair, but Banski shook his head.

"Don't worry," the man said as he took a briefcase from under the wheelchair. "They aren't a problem in the slightest, Mr. Chan. And besides, is good to have your family near."

Banski took out a bunch of papers and some other files out of the briefcase, giving them to Jackie so he could read them. "This what I need you to find for me, Mr. Chan. Money is not a problem, resources aren't either; and the time it takes you is irrelevant, I can understand that it can be a difficult task."

"You want me to find a book?" Jackie asked, reading the papers.

"Not a normal and simple book, Mr. Chan. I want you to find one of the 108 original copies of the _Necronomicon_ ; the ones that were translated directly from the Arabic text by the sages of Renaissance Europe." Mr. Banski explained.

" _Necronomicon_?" Jade asked. "What kind of name is that for a book?"

"It means ' _Book of the Dead_ ', Jade." Jackie explained, remembering his old lessons in dead languages.

" _But it's not dead what can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die,_ " Mr. Banski recited. "That's just one of the verses of the book, young Miss. Apparently a lot of rites and cults had based their belief's in the Necronomicon, which was apparently a literary work written by a man named Abdul Alhazred. Yet there have been proofs about religions in ancient Egypt that used the book, or a text very similar to that one in their cults. They always revolved around worshipping beings called Outer Ones, or Great Ones, or…"

"Great Old Ones?" Tohru inquired, raising his voice for the first time.

"Yes, that's the name." Mr. Banski said. "How do you know that?"

"Luck, I suppose." Tohru lied.

Mr. Banski paid no attention, pulling more papers from his briefcase, but a feeling of restlessness had taken over the members of the Chan Clan. Uncle and Jackie made their gazes meet, the little and brief discussion from before instantaneously forgotten. It was the elder who spoke next.

"And how is my nephew supposed to find this book?" Uncle asked.

"Ah, the reason I requested the help of Mr. Chan with all this was because one of the 108 original copies was last seen here, in America." Banski explained. "In fact, there are a lot of copies circulating out of there, but none of them compare to the one of the 108 originals. There is a university that has dedicated to produce copies over the last decades and put them in circulation, but they stopped to do it around twenty years ago."

"And that university is?" Jackie inquired.

"It's called Misqua…" Banski made a pause. "Agh! Stupid pronunciation problems! It's called Miskatonic, in a town called Arkham, in Massachusetts."

Now not only Jackie and Uncle, but also Jade and Tohru exchanged glances. "Excuse me, did you say in Massachusetts?" Jackie asked politely.

"Yes, that's what I said." Banski explained. "Due to your connections within the university you work for, you shouldn't have a problem to acquire permission to investigate the matter at Miskatonic. So, do you accept the job? I remember that it has to be one of the original copies, the prestige this could bring us could be incredible; don't you agree?"

"Yes, I agree." Jackie answered, to which Mr. Banski smiled.

"Perfect." Banski said. "I will be housed in one of the city's hotels during this whole affair, I will lend you the name of the one my associates have chosen once I know it." the man turned his wheelchair around and left the place with Jackie's help to open the door. "Have a nice day."

As Basil Banski left the antique shop, silence took hold of the Chan Clan. None of them said a word, but all were thinking the same thing. Necronomicon, Miskatonic, Great Old Ones, Massachusetts.

Too many coincidences…

* * *

 ** _Section 13_**

"You are going to visit my home?!" Director White exclaimed in joy, in ecstasy even. "Oh, I have a lot of restaurants to recommend to you!"

The Chans were standing in the Director's office, as they had done the graduation day, when Tchang Zu had attacked them. In order to accompany Jackie, Jade had to come and ask permission in order to leave Section 13 for a while. White didn't have any objection to that, and Jackie's argumentation that a little disconnection from the current situation with the Demon Sorcerers could be beneficial for Jade, Tohru and Uncle too only added reason to it.

The Director pointed then to a map of Massachusetts that he had put over is desk. "I recommend that you travel by plane to Massachusetts and then move in bus in between the towns and villages. If not, you could end lost. If you want to, I can made a call to my mother so you can rest in my home. With my brother in Athol and me here, she must be feeling quite lonely."

"Wait, are you from Arkham, sir?" Jade asked of the Director.

The fat man shook his head. "No, no; I'm not from Arkham. I studied in Miskatonic though. Ah, good times," White said as he remembered his days as a graduate. "But I'm from here," the Director said, pointing to a spot in the map, near Arkham and another town called Innsmouth, almost by the coast.

"From Dunwich."

* * *

As the Chans exited the Director's office, Jackie turned to Uncle. "Do you still suspect him?" the archeologist asked. He wasn't precisely in the highest of moods, but that was understandable. All that ' _use your job as a relaxing time_ ' had just turned into a mission. Seriously, what were the odds?

"Uncle's suspicions only grow with every time he meets with White-man," the elder told his nephew in a whisper. "We have to be careful. This is a dangerous game, the one we are playing with the Director. Uncle doubts that White reached his position being a nice person."

"Whatever…" Jade said, still a little displeased by their treatment of the Director. Truth be told, her own suspicions over the man were growing, but they weren't as high as Uncle's. And besides, he had helped Jackie just that very same morning! What reason could be for that if he was ' _Eeeevil!_ '

Jade took one of her hands to the back of her head. Noticing that, Tohru approached her.

"Are you alright?" the mountain of a man asked of her.

"Head hurts a bit, I suppose I could really use a bit more of sleep, but don't worry Tohru," Jade said as she and her family got to the secret base new elevator, now adapted so people like Tohru, or even bigger beings (as in magical prisoners) could go in and out. "It's exactly as you said, we have triumphed over everything that this life has thrown at us. There can't be anything out there that we can't defeat if we work together; and besides, I can shoot fire and you have laser beams now. What could go wrong?"

* * *

As if wanting to answer Jade's statement; Basil Banski was in that very moment in his hotel room, preparing for sleep. A couple of pills and he was ready to not wake up in ten hours. He hated being awake, his body was weak when he was awake; the world was ugly, smelled bad and was full of hypocritical wastes of flesh when he was awake. But when he closed his eyes, he could feel all the pain and tiredness to go away.

And so he was happy and free, when he dreamed…

* * *

 ** _The Dreamlands. Plateau of Leng_**

North, far north in the Dreamlands, there was the Plateau of Leng, a dessert of ice and white sand that mixed with the snow. The best words to describe Leng were cold and dangerous… but that wasn't where the traveler was going.

There, in the Dreamlands, Basil Banski's burns healed, and his body loss seventy years. And where the old, crippled Basil Banski stood in the waking world; in the Dreamlands stood the tall, handsome, black haired form of Randolph Carter; his face features angular and sharp, yet strangely beautiful. The man, clad into an elegant grey suit all wrapped inside a long coat of fur that protected him of the cold, was walking to the most north part of the Plateau.

Into Unknown Kadath.

Carter ignored the disorienting visage of the twisted buildings, he stairs that went up, down, left, right, back and ahead at the same time; the sounds of strange, chaotic flutes that were playing in the darkest corners of the city, surely thanks to some of the players of the Court; and directed himself to the main hall.

The main hall of Kadath was nothing flashy or ornamental. It was a huge, circular chamber, in which a lonely and a small bridge that led to the center of the circle and longed over an abyss that seemed to have no end. In fact, aside from the bridge, the main hall was nothing but an enormous hole in Kadath; a hole that supposedly served as a connection between the Dream Kadath and the city-world that floated in deep space in the waking world.

Randolph approached the end of the bridge and kneeled respectfully. He bowed his head, and closed his eyes. "My liege, your faithful servant has returned."

Even with the eyes closed, Randolph could feel how something stirred and moved in the hole beneath him. Something titanic, with no specific form, sometimes it felt as if the own abyssal darkness was the one moving. Tentacle-like limbs that dwarfed any skyscraper on Earth appeared then, dancing with numerous eyes and mouths in them, which looked and smiled at Randolph, as if he was some kind of pet or toy.

" **Ah, my sweet and little Randolph Carter has returned at last.** "

"My delay was for a good reason, my liege." Randolph answered. "I come bearing good news from the waking world."

" **Don't take it so seriously Randolph, it was nothing but a joke** ," the tentacles moved as if they were dancing to the tune of a funny rhythm, and then laughed, making the hall tremble. " **After all, what are a couple of months for someone like me that existed before time started to run, and space to expand?** "

The tentacles returned to the abyss then and shortly afterwards a formless mass of darkness jumped from the hole and landed over the edge of the bridge, just in front of Randolph, taking a more comfortable form.

" **You can open your eyes now.** "

Randolph did as ordered and raised his head towards his interlocutor, meeting him eye to eye. In front of him was a man taller than Randolph himself, with dark skin and a shaved head. Potent golden eyes looked at him from above, and a sweet smile was adorning his beautiful face, a face that made the ones present in the works of the ancient Greek and Roman sculptors look pale in comparison. The body was adorned in a complete, pitch black informal suit, but even so Randolph could appreciate how it hugged perfectly to accentuate his marvelous musculature. Not buff and hulky, but athletic and elegant without losing one bit of strength. In his chin was a golden adornment that resembled the golden beard that the kings and emperors of ancient Egypt wore.

This was the face of the Prince of Kadath, messenger of the Outer Gods and Outer God himself. This was the glorious face of the Crawling Chaos, the Black Pharaoh; Nyarlathotep. Well, _one_ of his faces actually.

"My Lord…" Randolph said in pure awe and veneration.

" **Now, Randolph dear, enough of that, we will have time later** ," Nyarlathotep said. " **Tell me about the waking world, my servant**."

"My Lord," Randolph said. "Everything is turning out as you devised, the family has been put in the way of the Book, and the Organizer has put all the pieces in line, and gathering in the process some of those demons to the cause, even if they don't know it."

Nyarlathotep's smile widened and a cruel light brightened in his golden eyes. " **Excellent, it means that this game of ours is progressing in the right direction**."

"But, my Lord Nyarlathotep, do you think that our repay to the Organizer is appropriate? To let him take one of the Fragments for himself…"

The Black Pharaoh raised a hand and silenced his interlocutor. " **Don't worry yourself with that, Randolph. Little Joseph has done nothing but prove his loyalty to us, and you should know, the members of that branch of the family have never been known to be nothing but practical and dutiful. Let him take as he desires, he has earned it.** " Nyarlathotep patted Randolph in the head. " **Good job, Randolph. Make sure that Dagon knows that the Chan family is coming to his domains, I wouldn't want for any of them to die** , **not until they had seen what I have especially prepared for them**. **And inform Pickman to keep an eye over that little dragon running in the West. I don't want for him to ruin any of the surprises, understood?** "

"Yes, my liege." Randolph said as he exited the hall after several _minutes_ of bowing, leaving the Crawling Chaos to his own biding. Nyarlathotep positioned himself at the edge of the bridge and let gravity to make him fall. In midair, his form shifted again, becoming the monstrous form that had greeted Randolph before. Nyarlathotep shrieked and his scream travelled through dimensions and space, reaching the borders of reality.

In a dry planet named Carcosa, a being clad in yellow clothing and with angelic wings smiled over the signal that had been send to him. And in the deeps of Earth's ocean, a dead Titan of ancient times dreamt of the coming change. The first piece of domino had been pushed, and the others would soon follow after that first one's fall.

And now, from the corners of irrationality… The Festival has begun!

* * *

 **Author Notes: Uh! The Game is on! I really hope that you all enjoyed this one, because I surely did, and I really put a lot of effort. To any person that guessed that White was a hybrid between a human and a member of the lovecraftian pantheon, and related to the Whateley family… yes, you all were right; I wasn't keeping that as a secret anyway. On a side note, I really enjoyed writing the Ice Gang, they are incredibly funny to write. And for anyone interested, Nyarlathotep's appearance is a shout-out to the comic Death Vigil, and the first appearance of The Abyss on that comic book.**

 **So, next is the Massachusetts Arc, in which this fic is going full Lovecraft. As always, leave a review to tell me how you found this chapter and have a nice day!**

 **Bye, bye!**


	9. The Dunwich Witch

**Disclaimer: I don't own Jackie Chan Adventures; JCA and all its characters are the property of Phil Weinstein, Frank Squillace and Jackie Chan himself.**

 **A/N: Well, here comes the new arc. Welcome; one and all, to the Massachusetts Arc, the part of the story in which the Chan Clan goes to the Lovecraft Country per excellence, full of monstrous creatures and evil people that commit inbreeding and other incredibly immoral deeds, albeit in reality Massachusetts is a fairly normal land populated by fairly normal and nice people, and the only spooky thing it has is the fog that populates it in the colder seasons of the year. But since this story borrows things from the Cthulhu Mythos, creepy and full of horrors Massachusetts, here we go! The reason I say this, is because there is going to happen something near the end of this chapter, something weird. I don't think is explicit enough to change the story's rating, but just in case, advised you are! As always, see the end of the chapter for more notes.**

* * *

Jackie Chan Adventures

Out of the Corner of the Eye

Chapter nine

The Dunwich Witch

* * *

 **From the journals of Marcus Malone. Ninth entry. April of 1948**

I seem to have problems getting back to this journal as of lately, but my life doesn't let me with very much time to spend to do as I please. The Project progresses adequately, and we are getting more and more successful results as time progresses, now we have even devised a mean so that the mothers don't have to die giving birth, and the results are becoming much more humanoid. Jie is spending a sort of vacation in his natal China with his parents and brother, and he seems to be forming a family in his own, finding a girlfriend and all that. I hope he tries to move back to America with them, I don't want for him to get stuck in China with this 'Cold War' going on. Randolph seems to be more and more enamored of Robert as time passes, and our dear Richard Pickman has taken an interest in painting. As for me, I have taken the position of head of the Library of Miskatonic after leaving my job in Dunwich, because, well; Miskatonic pays better, is nearer to the chambers where we operate the rituals, and Arkham is literally at a bus stop from Dunwich, so Lavinia doesn't mind. The young Henry Armitage, assigned to be my assistant, is of great help.

By the way, Lavinia and I are married now, we organized a small ceremony that, for some reason, our flamboyant Robert Black insisted in presiding as priest; and we are certain that we are expecting a child now, with all the testing and what Lavinia's mother told us when we visited her in Innsmouth after the wedding. She is a kind and affably woman, that mother in law of mine, even if she seems too dotting over Lavinia and by extension, me and our future children. If you ignore the platinum scales (I wonder if Lavinia's hair color and skin tone come from her), gills and other fish-like attributes, she just seems like the stereotypical kind of woman that wants to have grandchildren to play with. I'm actually kinda worried over the fact that John doesn't seem to be in the best of conditions as of lately, apparently the Old part of Old Whateley finally paying off. I would be sad if he died before meeting the kid or kids, or before they could hold a good memory of their grandfather.

Today in the morning Ephraim and little Asenath (now almost three years old) paid us a visit (apparently Ephraim had things to sort out with a merchant here), and Lavinia, John and I have tea with them. Little Asenath wanted to touch my wife's belly in order to see if she could feel the baby, and Lavinia left her even if Ephraim protested, saying that it was rude to ask like that. I laughed, and Ephraim joined shortly afterwards. Curious case, the one of Ephraim Waite. When I met him, he stroke me as the rudest of the bunch and a complete misogynist, even more than John, who is affably if mostly arrogant. But now I have discovered that they both really are nothing but men trying to give their daughters the best they can. Someone once joked that Ephraim could just sacrifice his own offspring if he was offered the opportunity to safe his own skin by doing so, but to those idiots I tell that they don't know the real Ephraim Waite. We are pretty similar, him and I. Even our own surnames are similar.

Little Asenath asked to Lavinia if she had chosen a name for the baby. My wife told her that if the baby turned out a boy she wanted to call him Wilbur, and if turned out a girl, Wilma. Asenath found it cute, just like my sweet Lavinia. I thought ' _too many W_ ', and found it kind of funny. I mean, let's say that I have a daughter in the near future. Can you imagine it?

 _Wilma White Whateley_ ; it just sounds funny. And now I have just realized that I have let you know my real surname, even if I make the effort of writing with my 'Marcus Malone' pseudonym. I'm such an idiot sometimes…

* * *

 ** _A bus in the road to Dunwich_**

Tohru felt uncomfortable. It wasn't because that he barely fitted in the damn bus, his massive body occupying the entire back seat of the public vehicle; but because of the smell.

They had arrived in Massachusetts in one of Section 13's planes, and then travelled to Boston so they could take a bus that drove into the roads of the Essex County, into Dunwich's direction. The bus didn't last long until entering the county, leaving the bustling of the cities behind and exchanging it for old roads full of bumps due to the effect of time and been badly paved in the first time, surrounded by trees that had grown old, thick and tall. Uncle and Jackie had taken the seats on the left of the bus that were just in front of him, and Jade had done the same on the right. After hours of travelling and every member of the Chan Clan getting in and out of the embrace of Morpheus, the sea appeared by the bus' right, as the vehicle travelled through a road at the top of a cliff. Looking down, Tohru could see the form of a village that was practically at the shore of the sea.

 _That must be Innsmouth_ ; Tohru thought. _Seems peaceful_.

What the sumo hadn't thought about was that Innsmouth's more prominent industry was (for lack of a better term) the one of fishing. And so, when the almost emptied vehicle arrived to the bus stop that was in the top of a considerably big hill, almost like a small mountain, and that was connected to the village below by a small lane; the bus became full of bystanders of different sizes, ages, and genders. But all of them had something in common, and that was the smell. They smelled, they stank, they reeked to fish. They all reeked to fresh, lively fish; the odor so strong that if the mountain of a man just used his nose, he could have sworn that the bus was filled with fish. But that thought was stupid, how could fishes be inside of a bus full of people?

Tohru felt uncomfortable. He wasn't very good in small places, and the bus was now filled with so much people, all talking and smelling... Tohru felt the impulse to open all windows in the bus, but he knew that would be rude. So instead, he closed his eyes and tried not to breathe with his nose, hoping for the trip to Dunwich to be short.

Meanwhile, Jade had found a different kind of distraction in the form of a young child, a girl no older than five years old that had taken the seat next to hers. The child had a very pale skin, and her hair was of a strange tone of dirtied yellow, almost like the green of fresh seaweed. The child (dressed in a childish dress that let her legs full of small and harmless bruises to be seen) had sat down, her feet unable to reach the floor. She kept her legs swinging back and forth, distracting herself. She was constantly shifting her gaze back to Jade, while the teenager was drumming her fingers against her knees. She had taken note of the girl's stare over her and had now turned her head to look eye to eye to the child.

"What?" Jade asked, not offended, but curious.

"You're beautiful!" the girl exclaimed, surprising Jade to the extreme, albeit her shocked expression let way to a smile afterwards.

"Er... thank you...?" Jade thanked the girl awkward but sincerely. "You're pretty cute too. I'm Jade."

"I'm Lily!" the child cheered. "Why are you in the bus, Miss Jade?"

"Well, my family and I are going to Dunwich." Jade answered; the cuteness and energy of the girl being able to take her into the conversation. "See, those are uncle Jackie and... just Uncle," she said pointing to the two men at the other side of the bus. "And that's my best friend, Tohru." Jade stated pointing to the Japanese wizard behind them.

Lily turned around in her seat, knees over it, in order to see Tohru. "Hello!"

"Hello..." Tohru greeted politely. The girl smelled to fish too. Why? This was the reason he hated coast side towns...

"He's big..." Lily said as she returned to her previous position, a statement that made Jade snicker.

"Yes he is," Jade said while she smiled as how amazed the little girl seemed over Tohru's enormity. Then again, Tohru was pretty much humongous, and the only time she had seen the man stand against someone bigger than him (that wasn't a supernatural creature) was when they were playing infiltration into Chang's martial arts tournament and she had been able to compare Tohru's size with the one of professional sumo fighters. "And what are you doing in this bus?" Jade asked the girl.

Lily opened a large pocket that was in her dress' front place and took a wallet out of it. "I'm in a special mission! To buy a present for big bro's wedding!"

Jade laughed. "Special mission?" the teen inquired.

"Yeah! Like… an adventure!" Lily answered.

Jade laughed again, and ruffled the kid's hair, which made the little girl to laugh in return. "Oh, I love you already;" Jade commented with sincerity. Then she looked around and noticed how the girl seemed to be alone. "Wait, did you come here by yourself?"

"Uhum." Lily said as an affirmation.

Jade's expression worsened, becoming the one of a worried person. "Wait, your parents send you in a bus to another town all alone?"

"Yeah! But I'm not really alone, everyone will protect me." Lily explained, and for a second, Jade thought about whom was composing this 'everyone'; but then Lily sat up in her own seat and putting her hands to her mouth in order to simulate the effects of a megaphone, she directed herself to the people of the bus. "Right everyone?! Innsmouth takes care of its people!"

"Innsmouth takes care!" the rest of the passengers, excluding the Chan Clan of course, retorted in a loud cheer.

The bus stumbled then over a bump in the road, making it jump slightly and Lily fall from her seat. The kid would have hit the bus' floor if not for Jade's intervention, who took her in her arms and put her back in the seat.

"Thank you." Lily said, rubbing her head slightly.

"Nothing," Jade answered. "It must be nice having a whole town looking after you, but I don't think…"

"Don't worry Miss, we've it covered. Ain't an Innsmouth child that goes to Dunwich and gets harmed, much less when in company. Innsmouth takes care;" interrupted then an old man from two seats ahead of them, dressed in what looked like a dirtied shirt and a pair of old trousers. He had a thick and bad cropped beard that almost reached to the middle of his chest, which contrasted perfect with the little amount of hair he had in his head. Under the sleeves of the shirt, Jade could reach to see some strange marks over the man's skin.

 _Tattoos? Maybe he's one of those 'old school' fishermen?;_ the teen thought.

"Dunwich and Innsmouth seem pretty close," Jackie stepped in the conversation. The bus seemed to have grown quieter in order to let the men talk with each other without the necessity of shouting.

"Aye," the man answered. "They've been connected since their foundation. Innsmouth works the sea, and Dunwich works the land. If we need to buy grain or cattle we travel there, if they need fish or something from the sea, they come home. And there are many of us that have family in Dunwich. I myself was born there, before going to Innsmouth to find a job and marry. In fact, you'd considerer all of us like a very big family; ain't that right, little Lily?"

"Yeah! Innsmouth takes care!" Lily cheered once again. Jade couldn't avoid giggling one more time due to the kid's sheer energy.

 _Is that some sort of town motto?_ ; Jade thought.

"Say friends, you really seem like city folk to me," the old bearded man continued to talk. "What've y'all lost in Dunwich?"

"Well, Dunwich is just a stop in our trip; we are going to Arkham after that;" Jackie answered politely.

"Ha! Now that makes much more sense," the old man said. "Come for Miskatonic? Want the Miss to graduate there, ain't that true? They are too full of themselves, those folks of Arkham, especially in Miskatonic. Don't get me wrong, they're all splendid people; but they are too urbanized to my liking." The old man made a pause then, in order to breathe some air. The bus took another bump, making all of the passengers to jump once again. As the vehicle took another turn, a village started to appear in the horizon. "Seems we're finally reaching Dunwich, this bus trip always feels larger than it is. Name's Ebenezer Boggs, by the way."

"Jackie Chan," Jackie presented himself. "These are my niece Jade, my Uncle and our friend Tohru."

"Well, nice to see some new faces around here, Mr. Chan." Ebenezer said. "But now that I think about it, if you're going to Arkham, why bother stopping by Dunwich? The bus goes there after this stop."

Jackie shook his head. "We are going to stop and pass the night in the house of friend that is from here," Jackie said, albeit a part of him felt a bit uncomfortably about thinking about the Director as a friend. "Joseph White."

Old man Boggs' eyes brightened for a second and his gaze shifted nervously between Jackie and Jade a couple of times before setting it over the archeologist once more. "Joseph White… Ah! One of Mrs. Wilma's kids! Yeah, I remember those two, always trying to play a prank into anyone! How's he doing? Last I know is that he had his arm bitted out by a dog when he was a youngster."

Jackie flinched slightly upon the totally nonchalant way he had described what happened to the Director. _So that's how he lost it_ ; Jackie thought. "He's… He is doing alright." Jackie answered.

"I'm glad." Boggs answered, but Jackie wasn't so sure that it was a sincere phrase. The bus started to decelerate, and then it stopped by a bus stop in the entrance to Dunwich. Everyone inside started to exit the vehicle, the reek to fresh fish decreasing as people left the bus. "Say, if any of you want to pay a visit to Innsmouth before returning to civilization, I have a small Hotel there. I'll make a discount just for you!" Boggs said before getting out of the bus.

Little Lily descended from her seat and stated to leave too. "Bye, Miss Jade!" she said as she waved her hand.

"Bye," Jade answered waving her hand too.

The Chans were the last ones to abandon the bus, mainly because they needed to help Tohru out. When they made the sumo to exit the vehicle and after taking their lugagge, they breathed in, relieved after getting out and finally being able to take fresh air in their lungs. This had been probably the weirdest trip on a bus of their lives.

 _Man I can't believe that after four hours in a bus, with a travel by plane before; Uncle hasn't say a word of protest_ , Jade thought. _In fact, he seemed very calm during the bus trip, and he usually freaks out when forced to spend a lot of time in public transport with so many people_.

"AIYAH!" Uncle yelled then. "YOU MADE UNCLE TO TAKE PLANE! YOU MADE UNCLE TO TAKE VERY SMELLY BUS WITH VERY SMELLY PEOPLE! UNCLE NEEDS FRESH AIR TO SURVIVE! DO YOU ALL WANT TO SEE DEAD UNCLE?!"

 _And there it is!_ , Jade thought with sarcasm.

* * *

 ** _Dunwich_**

Dunwich had struck all of the members of the Chan Clan as a town that had stopped its own time in the first half of the twentieth century. It was populated by very old houses, built in a very similar way as the ones of the old villages of England. Then again, Massachusetts was in _New_ England, and Jackie had mentioned that this Dunwich had probably taken its name and urban architecture from another Dunwich back in the old islands. It seemed like a very picturesque town, with the villagers attended their own business, albeit Jade had the strange sensation that there were some people that were looking at them with some suspicious glares, but they seemed to disappear shortly after. Was really so weird for them to see people that weren't from Massachusetts? Or maybe it was because…? Was it because they were Chinese?! No, that couldn't be the problem; they didn't seem like that kind of people. The teenager supposed that it was just that they were new in town. The other thing that really made Dunwich out of the ordinary was the smell. It wasn't the same one that reeked out of the people of Innsmouth, not the same strong smell to fresh fish. This town, these people, they seemed to smell to dying flowers; rotten camellias specifically. It wasn't a pleasant smell, but it wasn't a bad one either. It seemed fine, relaxing, encompassing the town and the air of tranquility that it had.

"Excuse me," Jackie asked of a woman in her late twenties with bright, straw-like blond hair; that was cleaning the entrance of a shop that seemed to be of her property. "Could you please tell us where does Wilma White live?"

The woman examined Jackie from head to toe, a small smile appearing in her face as she did so. "Sure, Mrs. Wilma lives in that great house up that hill," the woman said pointing to what looked exactly like a small mansion at the top of a hill, presiding over Dunwich. "But if you are looking for a _warm_ place to sleep tonight, I could give you one."

"No, thanks, we already promised her son that we will be ." Jackie apologized sweetly, making the woman to put into a disappointed look.

"If you have a change of mind…" the woman said as she made a little gesture to her shop's entrance with her head.

Jade fought back a laugh in her throat as they walked towards the mansion; Jackie hadn't noticed what had just happened. For someone so intelligent and versed in both archeology and languages, Jade had to admit that Jackie was really clumsy into what came to women. Or maybe it was that his break-up with Viper had really struck him hard. She didn't know; but it had been more than two years since that one, maybe it was time for Jackie to get to the 'market' again. She really didn't know a thing about what the hell happened between the two of them in Italy, and sincerely she wasn't going to get her nose into it if Jackie didn't want to talk about it; but it really had been a sad moment. When the two of them had really started going out, about three months after Drago's banishment, Jade had been in awe. Finally, she had got her really cool aunt! Finally Jackie had gotten a girlfriend! Everything seemed fine! And they seemed happy together. Then they took a trip to Italy just the two of them alone; and when they came back they did it in separate planes. Viper's reappearance a few days ago, saving Jackie's butt no less; had put her in a somehow strange mood. Jade liked Viper, and still looked up to her (except in that entire 'I steal everything' thing) but she really didn't want to become one of those people that had to take a side when two of her friends broke up. She really liked the two of them, and she would be the happiest person in Earth if they really could make things work out… but that seemed egoistic in her mind. Why couldn't people just be like one of those cartoon couples that just lived happy ever after when the show ended?

"Here we are," Jackie said, taking Jade out of her thoughts. Whoa, she really had been thinking so much that they had walked all the way to the house without her noticing it? Talk about her body acting mechanically…

In front of the family was now a small mansion (or as others would like to point out a very, VERY big house) built in black wood. Its design pretty much screamed Victorian Era, with the large balconies, the overcharged decoration, and the ominous feeling that whoever had built it wanted to transmit with its structure. It reminded them of that old, haunted house in which Drago had fought Mrs. Hartman over the chi of the Sky Demon. It had a somehow deadening aura around it, and it really was creepy in comparison with the regular houses of Dunwich, that looked quite normal, albeit old fashioned. The door was of a clearer tone in comparison with the rest of the house, and two golden W were engraved in it, as if they were a symbol or sigil.

"Do we just knock the door?" Tohru asked, before sniffing the air. Something had just changed about the smell of dead camellias. Something that smelled similar to… fish.

"They say that she is a Witch, the old Wilma White," little Lily said behind the four members of the Chan Clan, making Jackie and Jade to jump in surprise. They turned around and saw the little girl from Innsmouth, waving at them while a paper bag waited over the ground at her side, probably the present for her brother's wedding she had mentioned before. "Hello, Miss Jade." she said.

"What? How? When?!" Jackie asked surprised, while Jade kneeled to be face to face with the little girl.

"Did you follow us here without saying a thing to anyone?" the teenage agent asked of the little girl, who just nodded. Jade put her hands over the girl's shoulders, and make her forehead to stroke the one of little Lily. "I'm proud of you," Jade told her, remembering how she herself used to do exactly that, and how much she enjoyed seeing Jackie get desperate over her appearing out of nowhere.

"What does little girl mean when she says Mrs. White is a witch?" Uncle inquired then.

"Well, everyone knows that she's a Witch!" Lily said, swinging her arms like crazy. "You know, like the ones from Salem! They say that she is a descendant of them…" she said, remarking her words by moving her fingers into a spooky manner.

Ah yes, Salem. The famously infamous town wasn't very far away from this one, and Jackie supposed that some of its infamy casted itself over the nearest populated zones. He had his own experience with magic, and with myths of several countries turned out to be true, like the Chupacabra they had encountered in Mexico, but until he found real evidence against it, he (like many of his colleagues) will have the opinion that those girls on Salem were just a that, a bunch of scared girls that had been killed because of some idiot's religious fundamentalism.

"I suppose we have only one way to find out," Tohru said, and raising his hand and making a fist, he knocked the door three times, strongly enough to make the knocks to resonate and echo in the other side. At first, nothing happened, and several minutes passed with nothing but silence. After that, they heard footsteps behind the door, followed by the sound of several security padlocks being removed from the door. After that, the door opened slowly, revealing the form of the owner of the house behind it.

In the frame of the door an elderly woman that should be around Uncle's age had appeared, her body enveloped into a black gown covered by an equally dark coat. She had long grey hair that reached to the middle of her back, and she looked very thin. Dry wrinkles decorated her arms and face, her expression crowned by a confident smile, and brilliant green eyes gazed intensely at the visitors, a small scar running vertically through the left one for that matter. There was something in those eyes, something that none of the Chans could really identify, as if the woman knew something that they didn't know. It was the kind of brightness that lights in the eyes of someone that knows his own self superior and one step ahead of others.

The woman inspected all the attendants individually, her eyes taking their features and forms and storing them in her memory. "Good afternoon, gentlemen," Wilma White said, and her voice sounded like a soft and kindly whisper. "How may I help you?"

"Hello; Mrs. White right?" Jackie said. "My name is Jackie Chan; we are here because your son told us that we could spent the night in Dunwich before travelling to Arkham..."

Before Jackie could finish, Wilma raised a hand as a sign for him to keep silence. Jackie did as she had mutely order him. "Jackie Chan, the archeologist; and his family accompanying him of course. Joe told me about you, welcome to my home. You all are, let's see... I always was horrible for names... Mr. Uncle Chan, Tohru, Jackie Chan and the youngest one and the only girl in the group should be Jade Chan, correct?" Wilma noticed the presence of little Lily. "And someone I don't know and Joe didn't tell me about?"

"She isn't with us, she's..." Jackie tried to explain, but Lily stepped in front of them and advanced towards Wilma.

"I'm Lily," she presented herself, but instead of her previous childish behavior she seemed very respectful now. "I'm pleased to meet you. Is true that you are a witch?"

Jade repressed the impulse to facepalm. That had been incredibly rude, even for her standards.

"Ah, a young child of Innsmouth," Wilma said smiling fondly, apparently not being bothered by the question. "And what was that question for? Of course I am a witch," the old woman answered, and the child's face brightened as if it was a light bulb.

"Really?!" Lily said in pure amazement. "I met the Dunwich Witch! I can't wait to tell everyone!"

"Then go and tell, child. You should leave now, by the way. The next bus back to Innsmouth will arrive at any moment. And don't forget your paper bag."

Smiling as if she had been given the most glorious of toys as a present, little Lily gave the old woman her thanks, hugged Jade and then rushed hill down, paper bag in her little arms. Minutes after her departure the smell to dead camellias overpowered and casted away the one to fresh fish, and then Wilma White stepped out of the door frame, welcoming the Chans to her home.

"Come in, please;" the old woman said. "My house is yours." And so, the Chans walked into the house, one by one, the door closing behind them with a sonorous bang.

* * *

The insides of the house were much less ominous than the outside. While the mansion was a complete example of the architectonical overcharge proper of the Victorian Era, the inside had been adapted to modern times and so, with the proper illumination and mix between modern home appliances and vintage furniture, the home of Wilma White seemed perfectly normal. She showed them the house, from the first floor, composed mainly by a huge dining hall, a couple of bathrooms, and the kitchen.

The second floor was entirely composed by the rooms, both for the house's normal residents and for the guests. The house must have been lively in the past, because there was just one big room for whoever was in charge of the house at the moment (and that the Chans didn't see, for obvious reasons of privacy), and another pair flanking that one. The guest rooms amounted to be twelve in total, and were lined at each side of a large aisle, and seemed pretty much to be the same. A bed, a small closet and a little side table were the only things present in all the rooms, a small window the only thing that connected the room with the outside.

Wilma showed one of these rooms to each one of them, indicating where they would be sleeping. After that, she left them there unpacking their luggage, heading to the lower floor. While Jackie and Jade dedicated themselves to do as normal people would, just putting out of their bags what they needed in order to pass the night; Uncle had started to spread incense inside his room, muttering incantations as he walked from one corner to another. Tohru had done the same, and when ended with their respective sleeping rooms, both wizards went directly to perform the same rituals and cast the same wards over Jackie's and Jade's rooms.

"This is a bit of an exaggeration…" Jackie said. Truth to be told, his suspicions about Director White being involved somehow in all this have grown a lot lately, but a voice in Jackie's head was telling him that maybe they shouldn't judge his mother as an accomplice of his crime… if there really was a crime there.

"All caution is short!" Uncle said. "We must be careful in this town. Uncle can feel a dreading aura surrounding it…"

"But no willies;" Jade pointed out as she leant against the wall while Tohru casted spells in her room. "And no willies means that there is no proof of evil."

"No, no willies, not from any of us;" Tohru said as he exited the teenager's room. "But sensei is right; there is something… _not-right_ with this place. I wouldn't call it the undeniable proof of the presence of evil, and of course we don't know if Mrs. White is involved in all this, but it's worth to look at it."

"Please, tell me this isn't because Lily called her a witch… OW!" Jade complained as Uncle dope slapped her.

"Niece shouldn't be too carefree about this situation! We could be in enemy territory right now!" Uncle reprimanded her. "Fortunately, Uncle and Tohru had taken care of any kind of evil spirit that may try to assault us at night, just be careful not to let anyone inside. One more thing! Drink these!" Uncle said as he went to his room and returned with four little bottles that had something green and bubbly inside of them. "They may protect you from any kind of poisoning!"

 _That's precisely what I was referring to with exaggeration_ ; Jackie thought, knowing that taking the food for poisoned wasn't right. "Wait, since when do you have that kind of potion?" the archeologist said.

"Since nephew almost turned into a statue due to poison," Uncle answered, and Jackie shrugged. It made sense.

Jackie, Jade and Tohru took each one a bottle, and opened them. Vapors rose from the bottles, and upon entering all of their noses, the presents make faces full of disgust.

"Agh! Uncle, what is this made of?!" Jade asked as she fought the growls of discomfort her stomach was making.

"It's better if Uncle doesn't tell you," the elder said as he raised the bottle to his lips, but then stopping. "But one more thing! Uncle needs to buy hedgehog drool when returning home."

"Ugh…" Jade complained again. She covered her nostrils and swallowed the content of the bottle in one gulp. Jackie and Tohru did the same. As their faces turned to a sickening green for a second, Uncle pointed a finger to each one of them.

"Keep it inside, the bad flavor will only last for a couple of minutes;" the Chinese elder said as he emptied his own bottle; apparently without a problem.

* * *

Hours passed and the afternoon quickly became night. The Chan Clan met with Wilma White in the dining hall, a large room with an equally large table in its center. In the walls, paintings labeled as the work of someone called R. U. Pickman hanged and offered a kind of weird decoration. They were either depictions of strange, humanoid yet large and somehow flurry creatures reminiscent of the Bat-Khan General, (sans the wings) or paintings of several people that the Chans interpreted as familiars of Mrs. White. One was a depiction of a sharp-dressed old man with a stern expression in his face, titled ' _Old John Whateley_ '. The next one was of a platinum headed woman holding a baby in her arms while sitting in a chair, a man with short red hair and a pair of glasses standing right behind her, both of them looking tenderly at the baby. This one was titled ' _The young and happy family: Francis White and Lavinia Whateley with little Wilma._ ' The last one depicted a much younger version of Mrs. White, her hair of a potent red and quite shorter, and her face deprived of wrinkles, her skin in the painting clearly soft. At her feet, staring awkwardly at whoever was the person painting that one, were two little boys, one blond and the other with the hair black, albeit the two of them looked the same in any other way. Even with all the changes and the fact that he had his two arms in the painting; it wasn't difficult to recognize Joseph White as the one at the most left of the picture. This one was titled ' _Wilma and her twin Princes: Joseph and Jonathan_.'

As the Chan Clan sat down and started to dine the food that Mrs. White had put in the table, Tohru looked around and noted the lack of any other person around. In fact, it seemed that Mrs. White lived completely alone in the big house. As the Japanese mountain of a man put his spoon down and stopped eating the by the way excellent stew, he looked at Mrs. White, who was at the head of the table, serving herself another glass of wine.

"Excuse, Mrs. White…" Tohru started to say.

"Please, call me Wilma;" the old lady interrupted.

"Wilma, yes; do you… do you live here all by yourself? I remember Di- your son telling us that his brother lives in Athol," Tohru said, making sure that he didn't spill out that White was the Director of Section 13. In Mrs. White's eyes her son was, for all intents and purposes, just a psychologist that worked as a clerk for the government.

"Oh, Johnny lives in Athol yes;" Wilma answered. "The air there is better for his well-being. But I can take care of myself, and besides; the girls and women in town came from time to time in order to check on me and help me with the chores. They don't seem to mind, all the generations of the Whateley family have helped this town, and after all, Dunwich works hard."

"Dunwich works hard?" Tohru asked.

"Ah!" Jade exclaimed. "And Innsmouth takes care, doesn't it?"

Wilma smiled at the fact that Jade had perceived that each town had a motto of its own. "And of course, Arkham strives to progress. These three towns have always been in a mutually favorable symbiosis, it's fairly normal if you want to survive. Whateley for Dunwich, Waite for Arkham, and finally the now almost completely disappeared Marsh for Innsmouth. Those families have always been striving for the best of this part of the Essex County."

"Excuse me, but did you say Whateley instead of White?" Jackie asked, thinking that he had misheard the old lady.

"My family didn't become White instead of Whateley until my father, Francis, married my mother, Lavinia. Until then we have always been the Whateleys, with my grandfather John 'Wizard' Whateley being the most prominent member of the family."

"Why wizard?" Uncle asked then. "And why did little girl call you a witch?"

"That's how we always had been known here," Wilma answered, as she sipped a couple of times from her glass. "Since our ancestry comes from Salem, there were always rumors of us being some kind of magical wielders. Of course, the nickname turned into something positive after all we did for the towns, and of course, only idiots believe in magic."

Jade fought the urge to correct the old lady in that. But she supposed it wasn't so rare for her to not believe in magic. This zone didn't seem pretty much in touch with the rest of the world, and she doubted that telling the woman that magic was real and that her son was directing an organization dedicated to fight it wasn't the best of ideas. And so, the conversation between the matriarch of the White family and the Chan Clan ended. They enjoyed their diner, which even Uncle, in his paranoia, had to admit was delicious; and then went to sleep.

* * *

 ** _Deep in the night_**

Jackie woke up in the middle of the night, throat dry from the stew he had for dinner. Damn, he should have drunk more water… He exited his bed, and then his room in search of a bathroom so he could satisfy his thirst.

But then he heard it, the music. It looked like the playing of a violin, fast and high notes being played into such a manner that it was… _hypnotic_. Jackie went to the bathroom, drank water from the pipe, and as he was returning to his room, he somehow found himself inside one that wasn't his. This was a large room with an almost regal air around it, a king size bed as its center. He almost jumped as he realized that this surely was Mrs. White's room. But the music played so strongly here… Turning into the balcony's direction, Jackie saw the old Mrs. White, playing a chaotic tune in a violin under the moonlight. As she ended the play, she put the violin down, and breathed harshly.

"This is not as easy as it was in the past;" Wilma admitted, not without a slight smile. "Did you enjoy my play, Mr. Chan?"

Jackie flinched, since when has she noticed his presence. "It was… I never heard a play in the violin like that before."

"It's from Erich Zann; the nicknamed Poet of the Stars. I always thought his plays put Tartinni's to shame. He used to play in order to keep things away, but I play in order to attract and gather them. I must admit, you came even before I ordered you to do so, but I suppose I shouldn't be such a whinny, don't you agree?" Wilma handed her violin to Jackie, and then made indications for him to follow her. And without wanting to, Jackie's body started to go after the old woman.

"What? Wait, stop this!" Jackie yelled. "Uncleeee!"

"They won't wake up, Mr. Chan," Wilma told him. "You were looking for poisons, or knives in the night, but for someone so accustomed to deal with magic, you really aren't able to recognize the simplest sleep or mind-control spells. Then again, this is not that child's play you call chi magic, so you are excused."

"Spell?" Jackie asked, confused. "When did you-?"

"In the moment you opened the door," the woman answered.

"If you do something to my family, I…" Jackie threatened, but then his body stopped, and the woman turned around, her green eyes flashing with a calm fury and her hair elevating as if impulse by a supernatural force.

"You aren't in any disposition to demand anything from me, Mr. Chan;" Wilma said, and for a moment Jackie saw how a bluish current of electricity ran though her whole body, from head to toe. Then it disappeared, and her hair and tone returned to the usual. "And besides, me doing something to little Jade? Oh, Mr. Chan, I wouldn't dare to lay a hand on her. As for the wizards, well, Tohru seems like a gentle man, and maybe I find your Uncle attractive?" The woman laughed at her own joke, if it really was one, and then went back to her walking, with Jackie following in tow thanks to the woman's spell.

The two of them walked barefoot outside the mansion, into the big gardens that were behind it. How did his family miss that one? Camellias grew wildly all around the place, and died and rot afterwards. With reason the whole of Dunwich smelled to that, the air took the odor from here and then spread it down the hill across the entire town! Noticing the looks Jackie was giving to the flowers, Wilma smiled.

"The Camellia has always been my family's symbol, and by extension Dunwich's;" Wilma explained. "The dead bodies are a great fertilizer, I must ad;" she said, pointing to some bundles of earth that were enveloped in growing flowers.

"You bury the dead here so they can serve as fertilizer?!" Jackie asked in an outraged yell.

Wilma laughed as if he was stupid. "No, Mr. Chan," her voice had turned deep again. It was as if there was two Wilma White, one nice and gentle, and the other one a cold-hearted monster. "I _kill_ people so they can serve as fertilizer. A woman needs a hobby, and I enjoy gardening."

Jackie fell speechless as he was walking, his mind processing the old woman's words. He looked around, counting how many people were buried here. He lost count after fifteen... and those only were the ones in sight.

"Don't be afraid, Mr. Chan;" Wilma assured him. "If I wanted you dead, you would already be."

"You are a monster," Jackie told her, hate clear and strongly present in his voice.

"I try to be one," Wilma answered. "But I always end trailing behind my sons, you know? They are the genuine product, not a mere imitation, like me or Asenath. They take so much after their father... Ah, here we are."

Both of them had arrived to a large meadow in the other side of the hill where the small mansion of Mrs. White stood. But this was no normal meadow, because as Jackie noted, there were several, strange runes graven in the floor. Jackie looked in horror how Mrs. White raised one of her wrinkled arms and shot a bluish lightning bolt towards the center of the meadow, making all the runes to illuminate in the same bluish light. Jackie was very versed in dead languages, and even if not knowing every language in human history, he knew to recognize the calligraphy and symbols, and therefore he could identify the civilization to which they belonged. Now, he couldn't; and that meant that either those runes belonged to a civilization lost to human history… or that they weren't human at all.

"There, it's done," Wilma said. "That will be enough."

"Enough for what exactly?" Jackie asked, but the old lady just laughed again.

"It's enough for my son to see the signal and come here, and for the girls too. I spoke to you about the girls, didn't I, Mr. Chan? Those young ladies that always come to help me with the chores… now keep silence and let me play my tune. This is a show you really want to see…"

Jackie wanted to say something more, wanted to retaliate and told the old woman that she was crazy. Oh, why hadn't he listened to Uncle? What if… what if he was going to die there? What if something happened to Jade? Oh, his head hurt, the light of those runic symbols was really annoying to the eye…

Wilma started to play the same tune that he had heard coming from her room before. The violin started to emit the same chaotic melody, the arch of the instrument dancing violently over the strings. This time, as opposed to before, Wilma seemed to have enough energy to keep doing this for hours, and so the melody sounded much stronger. And then they came.

Women. Women appeared in the borders of the meadow, approaching its center. They were mainly young, some of them maybe too much. And they were naked, all of them. Jackie wanted to look away, but his efforts resulted in the same end as trying to run. The naked women reached the runes and formed a circle around them. How many were there? How many women, redheads, blondes, brunettes; tall, short; fat or slim? How many of them?! All of them, all of the young women, all of Dunwich's female population that hadn't still wedded to any man was there. And then they started to chant, in a language that Jackie couldn't understand.

"You came here in search of the Necronomicon, didn't you?" Wilma asked, playing the violin even more intensely. "Yes, Joseph told me that. Well, look, Mr. Chan, this is something we took just from one page of the chapter dedicated to my lover. And now, space warps, and one of my little Princes arrives!"

The light of the runes become more intense. And then Jackie almost cried as… something appeared in the center of the circle the women had formed. Something gigantic, of similar size to Shendu, or even bigger; but the size didn't matter, what mattered was its form. It was a gigantic, white colored, egg-shaped thing with nothing that resembled remotely an arm. Its main torso was opened vertically, revealing something resembling a mouth full of teeth that resembled twisted swords. The being was supporting itself into a mass of twirling tentacles that sprouted from the lower part of its body. Another three, more large and thick tentacles were in the upper half; each one of these ending into something resembling the mouth of a shark. And yet the most disturbing thing about it was the top, because there was something that resembled something similar to a blond-haired human head there, if a human head lacked the inferior part of the jaw. And the worst thing was that its eyes were now focusing on Jackie. The being started to creep towards him with its tentacles, but then Mrs. White put herself between them.

"You cannot eat him, he's still necessary;" she told the monster, which started to emit some kind of guttural sounds… that sounded exactly like the chants of the women before. "Yes, yes; I know. But your brother insisted in keeping him alive for now, as did Lord Dagon, as did the Crawling Chaos. I don't want problems with them, Johnny, and neither do you. Now, c'mon, look what mommy brought you!" Wilma said pointing to the naked women. "Go and enjoy yourself," the woman declared, and then one of the mouthed and thick tentacles descended and licked the woman in her cheek with a tongue that resembled more a worm than a tongue. "Yes, yes; I love you too, my son."

 _Son?!_ , Jackie thought in horror. That thing was her son? If this clearly wasn't Director White… then it had to be the other boy in that painting, the blonde one. How in the name of God did he become that?!

"Both my children," Wilma said, returning to her previous spot and sitting on the grass, talking as she could hear the archeologist's thoughts. Maybe she could. "Both my children take after their father more than me. Jonathan takes the looks, Joseph the brains." For a moment, the voice of Mrs. White cracked, and for a moment Jackie was able to regain control of his body and he looked back at the woman, who had a sad look over her face, and now Jackie was looking at a third Wilma White. "There is… so very little of me in them, so very little of human in both of them. Especially in Joseph, who didn't doubt two times before forming an alliance with the Prince of Kadath. We don't matter, Mr. Chan, do you know? We humans I mean, we are irrelevant. My father told me that in the very first second I was able to process words, and the faster we accept it, the better. That's the reason I offered myself for the Project, that's the reason I accepted the Lurker at the Threshold with open arms and legs. That's the reason they are here too."

Jackie was forced to look forward again, and then he saw how that living horror Mrs. White had called her son was enveloping women with its tentacles, holding them near its body, rubbing against its marble-like skin. And the moans, the moans were deafening, all of them rising to the skies like the cries of a bunch of hyenas. They were moaning, all of those women, all of those…

"Witches, Mr. Chan;" Wilma told him. "We are witches; I thought we cleared that while eating the stew. We are the Witches of Dunwich, and believe me; those old timers of Salem were amateurs in comparison with us. But where are my manners? Please Mr. Chan, you are my honor guest. Go and enjoy the party too."

Jackie started to walk against his will, and he started to approach the horrific show in front of him. In what takes a man to breathe, he had lost his clothes, and a pair of women took him by the arms and guided him towards a third one As the moans, now not only of the women, but also of the creature, became louder and louder, Jackie saw how the third woman, the very same blonde he had asked for directions at arriving at Dunwich, approached and kissed him. The other two forced Jackie to lie still in the ground and the third woman positioned herself _over_ him.

"Hello there, cute face;" she said. "I told you I had a _warm_ place for you tonight," and with that sentence she kissed him again.

And as his mind started to blurry and darkness enveloped him, the women started to chant again. And now, now he understood what they were saying.

 _Johnny Divine, Johnny Divine! One of the Twin Princes! One of the Twin Princes!_

 _Seed of Yog-Sothoth!_

* * *

"Jackie! Jackie!" he heard Jade calling for him, and a strong grip around his shoulders.

Jackie woke up in his bed inside the White manor, the sun rising at the other side of the window, and Jackie still in his usual pajamas. He looked around, no sign of the horror, no sign of the moaning women, and no sign of…

"Where's Mrs. White?" he asked.

"Down the stairs, with Uncle, Tohru and our luggage," Jade explained. "Except for yours, of course. Seriously, you have been having quite a dream, because I had to do a lot of effort to wake you up. You were also saying a lot of gibberish, repeating Yog… Yog… and calling for someone named Zann for help. I think you were having a nightmare."

 _Was it all a dream?_ ; Jackie thought. "But the violin… Jade, you must have heard the violin!"

"What violin, what are you talking about?" Jade asked in a worried tone. "Seriously, I think the stew made you feel bad, because you have spent all the night like that, speaking in your dreams. Was it Shendu?"

"No," Jackie answered, rubbing the back of his head. "Not Shendu."

"Then get dress up and come down before Tohru and I eat all the breakfast, silly." Jade said as she exited the room, leaving Jackie alone. He didn't feel any different, and he was sure that nothing in his bedroom had changed or moved. He quickly opened the window and looked outside; searching for the meadow and the garden of camellias fertilized with people… which apparently didn't exist.

 _Was really all a dream?_ ; Jackie asked himself one more time as he dressed and gathered his things inside his bag. He went down the stairs and had breakfast with his family and Mrs. White, the old lady as polite and pleasant as ever. As morning passed, Jackie started to quickly forgot about the horror and the witches, a fact that did nothing but accentuate his belief of it being nothing but a dream.

They ended their breakfast peacefully and then exited the house in order to take another bus, this one to Arkham. Mrs. White accompanied them to the door, where she waved at them friendly. "A pleasure having you all here, gentlemen. Come back anytime, I do enjoy company. If you met with a woman called Asenath in Arkham, say to her that Wilma said 'Hello'."

As the Chans descended from the hill to Dunwich in order to take the bus, they crossed a blond woman carrying cleaner products in the way. She greeted them, and they did the same. The woman arrived at the entrance of the small mansion, and raised her hand.

"Good morning, Mrs. Wilma," the woman said.

"Good morning Irene," the old woman. "I hope you are ready to clean for free, because my guests ate all the sweets I had in storage."

"For free? Please, Wilma," the so-called Irene said as she glanced back at the departing Chan Clan, especially at one of them. Her left hand rose to her stomach, and pressed it tenderly. "He already gave me enough payment for the next nine months, and the rest of my life too."

* * *

 **Author Notes: I bet NONE of you were expecting this one to turn out like this. Hey, remember all those 'Sinful Rituals' Lovecraft and his peers wrote about, and that were clearly orgies but weren't called orgies and weren't showed in the writing? Here you have the opening sequence of one of them, and our dear Jackie is the victim of it. What? Were you expecting the Massachusetts Arc to be friendly? Hell no, this is a JCA story incorporating the Cthulhu Mythos, of course is going to be dark! That said, some things to say: Yes, both Joseph and Jonathan White were planned to be this story's versions of the Dunwich Horror and Wilbur Whateley. Thanks to the Whateley Project and the existence of Marcus Malone (real name Francis White) who married Lavinia, the twins of that story weren't born, and instead this universe has Wilma White Whateley (who, by the way is a clear Expy of Nerissa, from WITCH), who was the one to screw with Yog-Sothoth and give birth to Johnny and Joe. Also, in this version, instead of dying gutted like Wilbur, Joseph just loses his arm, and therefore lives. I did this to show how dangerous an offspring of Yog-Sothoth (who is stated to be Omniscient) could be in a society that basically operates in the exchange of information. Also, the name Johnny Divine for the horror was borrowed from Alan Moore's Providence, a comic book that also uses Lovecraft's imaginery.**

 **Speaking of WITCH, by the way, and I'm looking at my usual guest reviewer Matt here, the crossover I mentioned between JCA and WITCH should be launched if not later today, then tomorrow. Also, thank you for your review last chapter, albeit I didn't understand it pretty well.**

 **I hope you all enjoyed this dark chapter, because next one is going to be a different one. Having said that, leave a review to tell me your impressions about this chapter and what I did to Jackie.**

 **Bye, bye!**


	10. Monsters of Arkham

**Disclaimer: I don't own Jackie Chan Adventures; JCA and all its characters are the property of Phil Weinstein, Frank Squillace and Jackie Chan himself.**

 **A/N: Hello, everyone! Here I come again! You know, I'm pretty glad that last chapter left such a strong impression; because that's exactly what I wanted to do. And now that we have passed over Dunwich, it's time to come to Arkham, so enjoy your reading! For more notes, please see end of the chapter!**

* * *

Jackie Chan Adventures

Out of the Corner of the Eye

Chapter ten

Monsters of Arkham

* * *

 **From the journals of Marcus Malone. Tenth entry. March of 1950**

John is dead. Jonathan 'Old Wizard' Whateley has departed from us, albeit _They_ … _They_ promised he will be forever with _Them_ , that he will be eternal. John is dead, and he left everything to Lavinia and me; and to our little Wilma too. I wonder if she will ever remember her grandfather. We travelled to Innsmouth in order to tell Lavinia's mother about John's departure… and… and she cried. Have you ever heard a Deep One cry? It's… it's not a nice sound. Never have I heard such a sincere lament.

You know, I was there when it happened. When John died, I mean. Lavinia had been there before, with little Wilma, in order to bid fare well. Even if I was waiting at the other side of the door, I could hear John making stupid and funny noises for his granddaughter. When they exited, our little Wilma was hugging her mother, and my sweet Lavinia was trying to avoid crying. I entered the room, and saw John in his deathbed, the one arrogant and confident John Whateley reduced to a fragile old man in the verge between life and death. I find of enormous fun how sincere you can be when you are talking with a man who is going to die. I told him that I found a better father in him than in my own, which was true. I told him… told him that I was grateful to him. He told me that I made his daughter smile, and that made me automatically the best person in the face of the planet. And both of us laughed. John's final words to me… he told me to take care of the family and complete the project. He told me that… that he had done everything for Lavinia, so her people don't have to hide, so her people don't have to be called monsters. So everyone could see the reality of the universe. I… I suppose I'm the 'Wizard' of Dunwich from now on.

Ephraim and little Asenath were the next to arrive; followed by Jie, returned from China with his family a year ago. He has another brother now, a little boy of two years; so now they are three siblings there. Pickman arrived shortly afterwards, carrying with him a painting of John, the same proud John of the past. Randolph arrived too, and he really looked devastated. I wonder if John was his first real friend… our flamboyant Robert Black arrived the last one, when all the others had already gave their respects to the dead and had gone home. After that we talked about the project, about how it was going. It was progressing adequately but… but after the little chat I thought that… that maybe we could give it a push; in John's memory, of course. So Robert brought up an idea. A very good idea, if I have to be sincere. So I decided that we should give it a try. Why only try with Great Old Ones, when there are bigger fishes? It's time to turn our attention to the Outer Gods.

* * *

 ** _The road from Dunwich to Arkham_**

This bus trip was resulting much more pleasant in comparison with the last one. For starters, the bus was almost empty; and the ones that were in it aside from the Chan clan were just a couple of men and an old, heavy weighted lady from Dunwich. And they weren't from Innsmouth, so the smell to fresh fish was completely absent from them, and that meant a much more tranquil and pleasurable trip in the bus. Across the windows, the sight of an enormous river accompanied them the whole time, its waters transparent. From time to time, Jade focused on it and saw how strange forms jumped in and out of the water, going in oth directions, be it towards the land or towards the sea. She wondered what kind of animal was able to do those jumps, but the bus was too far to let her see what they were.

Jackie yawned then, sitting next to Jade. The teen was meanwhile reading a little pamphlet about Arkham that she had picked from Dunwich's bus stop. She looked at how Jackie yawned once again. "Geez, if you're so tired then sleep a little. We still have a couple of hours before we reach Arkham according to the driver."

"I think I have slept badly tonight," Jackie told his niece. "I feel as I ran a marathon or something."

"Maybe you were given the bad bed back at Mrs. White's;" Jade said. "You know, I don't think she's very accustomed to have so much people in her home."

"Maybe," Jackie told her. "So, what does that say about Arkham?" the archeologist asked, pointing to the piece of paper.

"Tch, it's nothing but your usual propaganda. Listen to this: ' _The beautiful town of Arkham, jewel of the Essex County, is destiny of both tourist and people that search for a better life. We are the proud birth town of Richard Pickman, famous painter; and hosts of the respectable Miskatonic University, famous and highly regarded across all America. Fans of the comic book character Batman may have noted that the writers took inspiration from our town's name in order to…_ '; you know, maybe that old guy from Innsmouth wasn't so wrong when he said that they were too full of themselves."

"It's just a pamphlet, Jade;" her uncle told her. "Everyone exaggerates in those."

The trip continued as a calm as possible, and Jade was able to convince Jackie to sleep a bit more, the rattle of the bus' wheels over the road able to serve as a calming sound to Jackie. They arrived in Arkham at the time the driver had told them they would arrive, more or less at midday. Jade had to admit, this one really gave the sensation of being a modern city. The oldest houses were still pretty 'Victorian Era'-like, but there were modern edifications too, boutiques and electronic shops. There was even an Apple Store! It was clear that Arkham had progressed enormously in comparison to Dunwich. And of course, there was Miskatonic. The great congregation of buildings that the campus was rose in the distance like one of those temples of ancient Greece, clearly modeled to look like them, actually.

The bus stopped shortly after entering the town, leaving its passengers in the main street. Tohru was the last member of the Chan Clan to descend, helped by the other three family members once again. After taking their luggage, they started to search for a place to eat before going to Miskatonic. They found a restaurant shortly afterwards, one of the places Director White had told them about. As they eat, Jackie took the opportunity to look around a bit. Arkham seemed lively, full of energetic people walking the streets. The restaurant was also completely filled with families and other customers, and all of them seemed extremely nice.

"Do you think that we will have to pick a hotel room?" Tohru asked then, taking Jackie back to reality.

"I don't know," the archeologist said. "We don't even know if Miskatonic has an original copy of that _Necronomicon_ to begin with."

"Uncle thinks that maybe we should keep _Necronomicon_ to ourselves for a while," the elder said. "It could contain very important information about Great Old Ones; we must not give it to wheelchair-man so easily."

"Uncle, Mr. Banski is a respected member in the archeology world, we can't just deny him the book when he's paying a fortune to San Francisco State University for this job;" Jackie told the old man.

"Bah! Then wheelchair-man will have it once we have dealt with new Evil!" Uncle said. "We will give him an honorable mention once it's defeated!"

"I don't know… What do you think Jade?" Jackie asked his niece. "Jade?"

Jade wasn't paying attention. She was looking over at another table in the restaurant, where the same old lady from the bus was sitting alone, and being served a plate of soup by a waiter. "Uhm? Sorry, kinda distracted here," Jade excused herself. "So, we were talking about the last Star Wars film, right?"

Jackie fought the urge to facepalm himself over the teen's lack of focus. Sighing, he called for the waiter and the four of them ordered a plate to eat. After a while, all of them were served, and Jackie found himself quite surprised when Jade was given the same soup that the old woman had taken. After eating a couple of spoons of it, the teen laughed in whisper.

"What?" Jackie asked of his niece. She was behaving strangely, even by her own standards.

"Nothing, just remembered a joke;" Jade said, glancing slightly to the old woman again. _This soup…_ ; the teen thought. _It's spicy._

* * *

 ** _Towards the University_**

After eating, the family headed towards Miskatonic, the main building of the campus looking enormous and making all of them feel small by comparison. It wasn't that the others were small, but this one was… just almost unrealistically huge. One could argue that this had been one of the intentions of the designers at the moment of building the place. In order to made man always conscious of his insignificancy as a species, Miskatonic had been built huge and imposing, a sight that put you in the role of an ant before a skyscraper. The decoration of the exterior façade was also ominous and over exaggerated, with weird statues and depictions of strange creatures dancing all around. It didn't seem to be a problem to any of the students and staff entering the building, but the Chans were taken a little aback by it. In the principal façade, for example, was the depiction of a woman with long black hair holding proudly a… dagger in the air? Behind her, Jackie could see _something_ rising over a cloud that he identified as fog. The something was nothing but a mass of what seemed to be tentacles. In fact, all the non-human depictions of the façade seemed to be nothing more than tentacles, albeit there were some that resembles crabs, or maybe some kind of insects.

"Are those squids?" Jade asked aloud. "Maybe it's like the… university's mascot?"

"I don't know;" Jackie answered. "I'm not an expert in mythology, but they seem like mythological creatures of some kind. Maybe a Greek one? This place seems modeled after a Greek temple."

Tohru eyed Uncle, hoping for the old man to make a commentary, or maybe voice the suspicions that the Japanese gentle giant shared with him. But he didn't; Uncle kept his suspicions and commentaries to himself, thanks to a simple work of deduction. Yes, the feeling of uneasiness, the unnamed feeling was there again, crawling at the back of his skull, haunting him, mocking him with the fact that he didn't know what was going on, but remembering him that he knew that there was something going on. Uncle had his suspicions, and they were clear. This wasn't modeled after a temple, this was a temple. ' _Temple of knowledge_ ', some ones would call it, but Uncle knew better. He had studied for many years under Chi Master Fong, and the old wise monk had told him that evil usually tends to hide at the sight of the common eye as something normal and understandable. Upon seeing the creatures depicted in Miskatonic's façade, and seeing the swarm of students and teachers enter the building for the afternoon's lessons; Uncle made two questions in his mind. _How does a Great Old one look? And who, of all the men and women here, knows and who doesn't?_

The Chan Clan entered in Miskatonic, asking politely if they could see the principal Jackie saying that he had a meeting with him. The man at the entrance, none of the four knew if he was a teacher or any other member of the staff, corrected him; telling them that Principal Waite was a woman. A very beautiful one at that, he pointed out with maybe a bit too much enthusiasm.

The Chans were given a little tour around Miskatonic, the university being as impressive in its insides than in its exterior. After seeing classes full of people, offices with teachers investigating yet by reading documents or yet by conducting experiments, the Chans ended in front of a double door that, according to their guide, was the office of the Principal.

Jackie knocked at the door. "Excuse me, Principal Waite. I'm Jackie Chan, we according to see each other at this hour."

"Come in," answered a sultry and sweet voice from the other side of the door. The Chans opened the door, entering in the principal's office. It wasn't something overdramatic. The usual office you could expect from the principal of any university: titles and diplomas hanging from the walls and giving testimony of the principal's pedigree. Of course there was a little bookshelf full of books in which the world 'anthropology' repeated again and again, but nothing very grandiose. The desk, positioned in front of a large window that was now slightly opened and let fresh air to pour into the room and with a quartet of chairs in front of it ready to attend reunions, was full of papers and other documents, a little computer in the desk's corner. It was clear that the principal had been busy.

Speaking of the principal, she was there, sitting behind the desk and waiting for them to arrive. Standing up, she walked towards the Chans with the intentions of greeting them. She was a woman that seemed to be in her late twenties, or maybe in her thirties. She had pitch black hair that felt over her shoulders in bangs not very different from Jade's, the skin was of a pale tone that denoted a dislike for standing in the sun, her eyes were of a strange bright brown that seemed almost red, and she was dressed into an informal female suit. Maybe a _bit too much_ informal female suit. Her heels pealed against the floor as she walked, and as she moved her suit hugged to her figure, letting not very much to imagination in order to know how well endowed she was.

 _Whoa, I swear I have seen smaller melons than those two…_ ; Jade thought for a moment, but the principal reached them, extended her hand towards her, of all the attendants. Shouldn't she greet Jackie first? _Whatever, let's get over this_. Jade shook the woman's hand, and then she passed to do the same with the three men they were accompanying Jade. However, the teenager noted that, while the principal had shaken her pleased, she wasn't as enthusiastic to do the same for the other members of the Chan Clan. Curse her awesome training as an agent and her new skills in order to read body language! _But why is she so…?_ ; Jade started to think, just for the woman to turn around after greeting her relatives, swinging her hips slightly, and directing a not very subtle wink in her direction. _Whoa! Did she just…?_

"It's a pleasure to finally met with you, Mr. Chan;" the woman said, reassuming her seat behind her desk. "My name is Asenath, Asenath Waite; Principal of Miskatonic University. I remember talking with someone of the San Francisco State staff that told me about your arrival. However, I wasn't informed about the reason of your visit; Miskatonic doesn't have such a close relationship with California's colleges and after all we have the whole country between us. But please, take a seat; let's not say that we folks of Arkham aren't hospitable people."

The Chan Clan took the seats they had been offered, sitting peacefully in front of Asenath as she ran her hands over a bunch of the papers that were in her desk. "Yes, there it is;" she said taking one of the papers. "I'm such a disorganized woman... Apparently, you have asked to be given access to our library, in hopes of be able to search for a book that we supposedly have in our possession...uhm, _Necronomicon_ ;" Asenath's eyes narrowed upon reading that name. "Haven't heard of that one in a long time. Why the _Necronomicon_?"

"My university and I specifically, were given the task of finding an original copy;" Jackie explained.

"One of the original 108?" Asenath asked. "Uf... I'm sure we had one of those, but it has been such a long time... Armitage should know better than me." Asenath searched between the papers, taking a list from the bunch and reading it. "We still have many copies in storage, but you said you have been tasked with finding an original one... you should talk with Armitage in the Orne Library, one of the buildings outside. He surely knows better than I do."

"Thank you so much, Principal Waite;" Jackie thanked the woman. "Ah! I almost forgot. Before coming to Arkham we passed the night in Dunwich, in Wilma White's house. She told us to say hello to you for her."

"Wilma?" Asenath asked, her face brightening in delight. "Oh dear, I haven't seen her in such a long time! How is she doing?"

"She is doing well, I think;" Jackie answered. "At least, so it seemed to me."

"Fantastic. Such funny times," Asenath said, half-lost in her memories. "But how come that Wilma accepted a whole family in her house for day to night?"

"We are..." Tohru started to say; "acquaintances with her son."

Asenath raised an eyebrow. "Who, with little Joseph? Oh, that kid was such a headache when he was still around. Jonathan at least was an obedient kid, but Joseph was so disobedient, always slipping under Wilma's eyes in order to discover something new. Oh, I remember when Wilma once brought the kids here. Joseph convinced Jonathan to escape and sneak into the tunnels beneath the building, just because he wanted to know how they looked!" Asenath laughed. "Wilma was so worried and angry..."

"I can relate," Jackie said, glancing a bit towards Jade, who elbowed him friendly in response.

"You and Mrs. White seem pretty close," Tohru commented.

"It was your typical story of girls growing up together," Asenath told them, and her voice felt warm and alive. "Our fathers were friends and colleagues here at Miskatonic, and since I never knew my mom, Mrs. Lavinia was like a mother to me. Wilma and I always were like sisters."

"Well, it really must have been good to have her as a big sister figure," Jade commented, thinking about the age difference between the old lady from Dunwich and this one.

However, Asenath proceeded to laugh. "She was hardly my big sister. I'm a couple of years older than her."

Silence took hold of the room for several minutes. Had... had that been a joke? How were any of them going to retort to that? How were there supposed to retort to that?

"Excuse me," Tohru said, polite and slowly. "But have you just said that you are older than Mrs. White?"

"Well, yes;" Asenath answered. "Actually, I was three or so when she was born."

"You look..." Jackie started, not knowing how to phrase his thoughts in a proper manner. "Well, you aren't..."

"You mean that I don't look that old?" Asenath helped him. "Don't worry about rudeness, I'm accustomed to it and I actually enjoy the flattery. But yes, I'm pretty older than I look. You would be surprised how much a good diet does to help your body, Mr. Chan."

 _Bullshit!_ , Jade thought. _No diet makes you look like a cougar in her early thirties when you should be an old lady in her sixties!_

"But enough with the triviality;" Asenath continued. "Go and meet Armitage, he will be of more help than I am."

The Chan Clan bid farewell to Asenath Waite, who wished them the best of lucks. They exited her office in the same way they had entered, and after that, the four directed themselves into the library direction. However, once they had put enough distance between the principal's office and themselves, Uncle stopped his walk, and directed himself to his family.

"Do Jackie and Jade need Uncle's help?" Uncle asked of both his nephew and the teen.

"I suppose we really don't but…" Jackie said. "Why would you ask?"

"Uhm… maybe Uncle and Tohru should take another route then," the Chinese elder explained. "To see around until Jackie and Jade have cleared things with book"

"Sensei, I don't think…" Tohru started to say, but Jade interrupted him.

"You know, it's a great idea," the teenager told the old man. "You and Tohru should explore a bit and see if this place is nice for, you know, me if I decide I want to keep studying."

"Good, then Uncle and Tohru will first investigate if the cafeteria has tea, and then they will see whoooole university;" Uncle declared, taking the Japanese sumo with him.

Jade and Jackie parted into the other direction, exiting the building they were currently in and heading to the Orne library, and as they walked, Jackie was able to think and deduce that there had been some unspoken words between her and the elder.

"Jade, care to tell me what is going on?" Jackie asked to his niece, who now was walking in front of her.

"Shendu told us that whatever destroyed his siblings, this _Hastur_ ;" Jade explained. "Was a 'Great Old One'; then Mr. Wheelchair appears and sends us in search of a book related to the Great Old Ones, and now we are in a university that made copies of that same book. There are too many coincidences."

"Oh!" Jackie said, falling into account. "Suspicious?"

"Well, duh!" Jade answered. "This is too fishy, even to me. All my agent-senses are ringing like crazy. And don't get me into the sixty years old woman that looks like a thirty old bimbo."

"You didn't get as suspicious of Director White," Jackie told his niece, as they turned around a corner and, checking a signal, they continued towards the library.

Jade flinched slightly at the mention of the Director, her fingers cracking almost as she didn't realize it. "I don't want to think of what that implies, but from now on, I'm getting into full 'agent-mode'. So, we'll let Uncle to investigate while we search for the book."

"You know Jade, I sometimes forgot that you have spent four years in training;" Jackie told the girl with an edge of pride in his voice.

"Hey, all those training sessions pay off, Jackie." Jade answered. "For example, I bet that I'm the only one that has taken notice."

"Taken note of what?" Jackie asked, slightly confused.

"Tch, isn't it obvious? All the way since we took the bus in Dunwich, Jackie;" Jade explained to him. "Someone has been keeping an eye on us."

* * *

Tohru had never been someone to decline an invitation in order to eat but he had to admit that his mentor was behaving a bit strangely. The sumo had to admit, after Uncle's explanation of letting Jackie and Jade handle the search in the library in order to let them investigate in their own, everything made enough sense, but he was still doubtful. Well, he supposed that the best way to figure out a plan was to use the time provided by a cup of tea in Miskatonic's cafeteria…

"What kind of idiot calls this aberration Oolong tea?!" Uncle shrieked as he had forced the waiter of the cafeteria to prepare him his third cup of tea, this one with the same fatal results as the previous two; and making a line full of clearly pissed of students behind him.

"I'm sorry, mister… I'm new, so…" the boy, a young redhead man that shouldn't be older than twenty two, replied a bit taken aback by the elder's rudeness. "I'll make you another one!"

"Bah! Uncle doesn't want your awful tea anymore!" the man declared, pointing to one of the little dishes in the bar. "But, he will take the small apple pie."

"Right," the man told the elder, serving his petition. "And you, sir?" he asked Tohru.

"Just a cup of coffee," the big man answered, before glancing back at how Uncle had already moved towards one table and had taken it by shooing the quintet of students in it. "Make it a really strong coffee. I'll need the energy;" Tohru specified, sharing a smirk with the young man.

Master and former apprentice sat down, taking sips and bites from drink and dish. Students and teachers went in and out of the cafeteria; taking their food, sitting, eating, chatting if they had company, and then going out again,; all of it in simple minutes. Tohru had never been at university, and he supposed neither Uncle had been. Maybe he should ask Jackie if the life of a student in this level of the educational system was so… the word he was searching wasn't hard, but frenetic.

"Sensei, what do you plan to do?" Tohru asked the old man, who took the last bit of apple pie, savoring it in his mouth with evident pleasure, and then swallowing it. His stomach proceeded to growl angrily after that, but then it stopped abruptly, accompanied by a little sparkle over his eye. "Should you be eating that?"

"Good thing about having power of Noble Horse, stomachaches go away in seconds!" Uncle declared happily. "But returning to task, we should get this place completely checked. There is something bugging Uncle every second he spends here."

"Me too," Tohru admitted. "But I can't place it. It's just like that creature, that Shoggoth in the station, and Dunwich yesterday. This town, and this university specifically… it's just like…"

"Something is missing," Uncle said, taking his fingers to his chin. "Perhaps the reason we don't have the willies is because there is no dark chi danger…"

"Sensei, if you are suggesting those 'Gods', as Shendu called them, don't have any chi…" Tohru thought about the implications of that for a second. "That's ridiculous, every living being has chi energy; be it good or evil."

"Every living being we know about, my former apprentice;" Uncle pointed out. "Perhaps the reason I felt no chi coming from creature in the subway, or from White-man… perhaps is because they aren't living creatures."

"But they are alive," Tohru said. "And the Director, albeit strange-looking, is undeniably human and his mother…"

"We forgot to check on her," Uncle admitted, palming his forehead. "How did we forget something so important?! Tohru, finish your coffee. We must do research!"

"Yes sensei," Tohru answered, finishing his cup in one gulp.

After that, both men got up from their seats and exiting the cafeteria in order to search thoroughly across Miskatonic about any information they could find about their new, unknown enemy. What none of them seemed to notice, was the old lady from the bus and the restaurant, keeping surveillance over them. But of course, it wasn't any old lady. She took one hand to her face, adjusting the latex mask that emulated the wrinkled face of an elder, and moved under the costume that did the same for a round, aged body.

 _I hope you keep to your fucking word, White_ ; Viper thought under the tons of latex of her disguise. _I may not be vain, but I wasn't born with my face and trained my body during my whole life to now spend days living as a decrepit old lady_. She sighed internally. _Well, at least those two are easier to keep a track on than on jade. I bet she has already noted that I'm here. Kid has come so far…_

Shaking her masked head in order to get out of it those thoughts and standing from her own spot in the cafeteria, Viper decided to continue her surveillance over the old man and the sumo he had for an apprentice. A part of her was telling that this was entirely wrong, that she shouldn't be playing this games, that people like White were the kind of people she shouldn't get involved with. But all of those inner alarms were shut down by a single sentence.

 _It's all for mom's wellbeing…_

* * *

Dr. Henry Armitage had always considered himself the biggest fan of occultism you could find. That was one of the main reasons he had settled for Miskatonic in his youth. By first getting a job as assistant, he had kept himself glued to Mr. White, practically kissing the land he walked by, just for the sake of getting the job of secondary librarian as a youngster. Several years of hard work and bootlicking later, and once the old man had retired, Armitage had been given the position of chief librarian, and for decades he had been there, in his post, surrounded by all his books about occultism. And now he was a small, meek and slightly overweight man, a whitening beard adorning his face, always dressed in comfortable yellowish pullovers that his wife made, and he felt longing, nostalgia about good Francis White, who had given him the opportunity to access the job of his dream. Or maybe it was that he didn't have people to talk about occultism, secret societies or ancient gods anymore. So imagine the old man's pure joy when this Jackie Chan and his niece show up in the library, and both of them ask him about the original _Necronomicon_! Well, one of the 108, the original tome from which Mr. White and Mr. Black had been doing copies; but still!

"Yes, yes!" Armitage practically yelled out of sheer joy in front of Jackie and Jade. "The work of the Mad Arab, of the Despaired Poet, right? _Necronomicon_ , such a sweet ring to it!"

Both uncle and niece looked a bit puzzled to the small man in front of them, moving his hands frenetically as if he was a child that had just received a gift from his parents.

"Doctor Armitage," Jackie said. "We really are grateful that you are so happy for this, but we are in a..."

"Hurry!" Armitage said. "Hahaha... Yes, I suppose that is fairly normal. I was once young too, always wanting things done as soon as possible..." Armitage headed towards one of the huge bookshelves of the library. And what good example of a library was Miskatonic's Orne library; bookshelves as huge as trees, all of them full of thick tomes detailing every theme you could imagine. During the passing of the last decades, Armitage had made sure that one of these was dedicated entirely to his loved tomes about the occult and the unknown.

"Let's see; _Necronomicon_ , _Necronomicon_..." Armitage said as he passed his wrinkled fingers over the books. "No, this is the Book of Eibon... ah; here is one of the best ones!"

Armitage took one of the thick tomes in the bookshelf, handling it to the two members of the Chan Clan. It was a thick book with covers of a dark reddish tone, the word Necronomicon engraved into the front in golden letters. However, Jackie knew just by touching it that this book was quite modern, and that meant it couldn't be the one he was looking for.

"Excuse me Dr. Armitage, but this isn't…" Jackie started to say, but the small man interrupted him again.

"Of course it's not the original copy! If I had the original, it would be hermetically sealed in a safe box!" Armitage stated quite proudly.

 _This guy's such a dork_ ; Jade thought. _Reminds me of those guys who keep comic books in the bank_.

"The original… once copies were made, I think that Mr. White took the original to somewhere else… or was it Mr. Black who took it? I don't remember…" Armitage continued his speech, his face contracted then due to the effort of trying to remember something that had happened so many years ago, but shortly returned to its usual smiley one. "But I will look into the archives and see if I can discover where they sent the original one. I think they gave it to someone in Innsmouth, by I don't remember exactly to whom. That one you are holding it's one of the best copies Mr. White and Mr. Black made. I hope it can serve you until you find the original one."

Armitage walked out of Jackie and Jade's presence, leaving nephew and niece alone in the library so they could inspect the book. They both took then a seat around a large table. There were others in the library, but very few. Good, that would give them some intimacy.

"So, we basically read?" Jade asked.

"Nothing wrong can come from it," Jackie said, opening the book and then reading loud and clear. " _Necronomicon, Book of the Dead; translated by Francis White and Robert Black."_

"That's the Director's grandfather;" Jade told Jackie, interrupting him briefly. "Francis White; there was a painting of him in Dunwich."

 _"From one of the 108 original copies in Latin that were translated from the original text of the Mad Arab_ ; _who is normally wrongly named as Abdul Alhazred, but whose real name was revealed by further investigations to be Abd al-Azrad_ " Jackie made a pause then. "That's a pretty ominous name…" Jackie said, his face paling a little.

"What does it mean?" Jade asked in a curious tone.

"Servant of the Great Devourer;" Jackie answered, and his niece flinched slightly too.

" _It's important to take in consideration that these copies we make here at Miskatonic are rather pourer editions of the original text_." Jackie continued reading. " _Albeit the translation is faithful to the text we are working with, it lacks the original's intrinsic ability of making you feel what the Necronomicon tried to transmit. Thus, the copies should be considered more like an encyclopedia than like the glorious literary work that the original really is. If you have access to one of the original 108 copies, we recommend that you read that one. Sincerely; F. White and R. Black._ "

"It looks like a normal book to me;" Jackie stated, passing various pages in the search of something resembling an index. "Let's see… ' _The language of Aklo_ ', ' _Concerning Yuggoth_ ', ' _Rites and Rituals_ '…" Jackie paused then as he reached one of the chapters that occupied the majority of the pages in the book, situated around its center. "About Great Old Ones…"

"That's it!" Jade shouted, just for the rest of the people that were in the library to shot her an enraged glare. "Sorry… But I mean, those are the things Shendu mentioned, right? Search for that King in Yellow, or whatever it was named."

"Jade, you didn't let me finish;" Jackie told the teen. He then put the book between then, so both had access to the pages and could read. What was written in there was something they weren't expecting. They both exchanged a look, and decided that the best they could do was to keep reading.

 _About Great Old Ones and Outer Gods_

 _In the beginning, there wasn't but nothingness, in the First Void. Then, in the center of that nothingness the First Spark twinkled, and then the explosion. The explosion took the form of Azathoth, the Nuclear Chaos, Blind Idiot Almighty and Daemon Sultan; and around him, all creations and existential planes started to dance. Azathoth, in his madness, created The Music, and then sank into a deep sleep. In his sleep, Azathoth dreamt, and has been dreaming since. From the First One's dreams came three beings; and thus were born the Darkness, the Nameless Mist and the Messenger, embodiment of Chaos. From the Darkness came Shub-Niggurath, Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young; and from the Nameless Mist came Yog-Sothoth, the Key and the Gate, the Memory of All and Lurker at the Threshold, only second to the Daemon Sultan in power. The Messenger took then the name Nyarla and started to travel the universe, spreading Chaos. And thus, were created the first Outer Gods, the others coming shortly from Azathoth's dreams, masters of reality, creators and destroyers of universes. So came the likes of Daoloth, Render of Veils; Cxaxukluth, Great Devourer; and Ghroth, the Harbinger._

 _Yog-Sothoth and Shub-Niggurath proceeded then to mate with each other, and from that union were born Nug and Yeb, and after them Hastur, King in Yellow; the three of them first of the Great Old Ones. In order to create a new breed of these beings, Yog-Sothoth mated with his own offspring Nug, and produced Great Cthulhu, mightiest of the Great Old Ones, the High Priest. During this time, Hastur went back to his mother and fathered several of her Thousand Young. Yeb fathered then powerful Tsathoggua with Cxaxukluth…_

The text continued without a stop for several pages, but Jackie closed the book then, and Jade and he reclined in their seats, letting a loud sigh to escape their mouths. What the hell had they read? In any other circumstance Jade would have commented that the book seemed to be some kind of perverted version of the Christina Bible, but Shendu had told them that this Hastur was real, and that there were others like him. And now there were even more, even more powerful. Should she believe what was written in that book? Was the old dragon telling them the truth, or was it just a big lie? But no, the creature in the subway, the Shoggoth; that had been real; and in her experience that meant that the majority of things related to it were real too. Jade took the book and read couple more pages, describing what kind of beings were these outer Gods and Great Old Ones. The text talked about destroying planets like it wasn't any different from opening a window in the morning.

"Jackie?" Jade told her Uncle.

"Yes?" Jackie asked in return.

"I'm scared;" the teen confessed.

"Me too;" Jackie admitted himself.

They decided to wait until Armitage's return sitting at the table, the copy of the Necronomicon over the table, closed and untouched. And yet, this was nothing but a copy, nothing but a pourer version. The questions reminded unspoken, but there they were. How was the original? And it was really necessary to go after it? And then what? What would they do, how would they proceed? After several minutes, Jackie extended his arm and put it around his niece's shoulders. Jade reclined her head and leaned against his uncle's chest. They remained like that until the chief librarian returned with some information about the original _Necronomicon's_ whereabouts.

* * *

As Jackie and Jade read from the copy of the Necronomicon, gaining insight about their new adversaries, Uncle and Tohru continued their exploration through the buildings and halls of Miskatonic. Their search was proving a lot more difficult than they had thought at first. After all, as they exited the last building and sat down in one of the campus' benches, both chi wizards reached a conclusion.

"Nothing, there is nothing!" Uncle yelled, throwing his arms to the heavens in order to accentuate his exasperation. "No matter how much we search, there is absolutely nothing!"

"Calm yourself, sensei;" Tohru told him. "Maybe we overlooked something? We shouldn't give up just because we haven't found anything in our first search around this place. After all, it's our first time in here."

"Tohru speaks truth," Uncle said after regaining his composure. Then he sat up from the bench. "Let's march former apprentice- AGH!" Uncle proclaimed, just for clash with someone once he had started walking. Tohru stood quickly and helped the elder to his feet as papers started to fly all around, free from the gasp of the man that had let them go upon crashing.

"Watch yourself!" Uncle protested. "Did you want to provoke a heart attack to Uncle?!"

"Sorry sorry…" answered the deep, slow, yet friendly voice of the man who had crashed with Uncle. "Hey, wait a second! I know that voice!"

And surprising himself, Tohru found out that he also recognized that voice. For too many years in the service of a despicable man, he had heard that voice. He had called that voice companion, and if fate had gone in other direction, he maybe could have called it friend.

"Ratso?" Tohru asked, thunderstruck.

The former enforcer, dressed in his usual black and bad tailored suit, his skin as pale as ever, his eyes red and the bad hair in his head. Hell, he even continued wearing his typical band aid around the nose. And yet, Tohru noted that these last four years hadn't passed over the enforcer without leaving their mark. The Japanese mountain of a man noted how the former enforcer had lost a bit of hair around his temples, and how he looked a bit fatter than in their last meeting. Tohru found this as a warmer to his heart. It was clear that life had been kind to Ratso after his retirement from the world of crime.

"Big T!" Ratso greeted Tohru from the ground. "A bit of help, buddy?"

Tohru extended one of his large arms and helped the man up, who then started to recollect the papers he had let lose in the ground. "Man, I hope I haven't lost any important one…" Ratso complained. "But what does that matter?! Tohru, it has been too much time! And old Mr. Uncle too! Sorry for clashing with you…"

"Uncle forgives you," the Chinese elder told the man. "But what is former delinquent doing here?"

"Oh, I work here;" Ratso answered sincerely. "I'm part of the staff of the physics faculty, although they still don't let me to teach."

"Oh yes, I remember you saying that you used to study physics…" Tohru said, more as a reminder to himself than anything else. "It's good that you were able to pick it up again."

"And wasn't it tiresome, big man!" Ratso complained. "Almost lose my mind studying day and night, but hey; there's no prize without effort."

"I agree," Tohru answered, letting a warm smile to come to his lips. It was nice seeing that Ratso had been able to follow with his life being a decent citizen. Whoever said that there were people beyond redemption was proven wrong at his very moment. However, the good mood didn't last very long.

"So, uhm… not really wanting to crash the mood here, but… should we evacuate the university?" Ratso asked.

"What?" Tohru asked stunned. "Why would you have to do that?"

"Because every time you show up, something whacko happens;" the former enforcer explained. "I bet Chan is around here, fighting some short of evil cult of fanatics that worship a Rubik cube or something like that."

"Ratso, I assure you, there is nothing endangering the university;" Tohru told the man. "We are just… accompanying Jackie into one of his job travels, and seeing the university around."

"Oh," Ratso said, and then thought a little. "I don't buy it, big buddy. Finn called chow and me days ago, telling us something about a monster and Valmont coming back from the death or something, so why don't you tell me what… ow! What was that for?" Ratso asked of Uncle as he rubbed his forehead, where Uncle had dope slapped him.

"Uncle and Tohru are searching for information," Uncle explained Ratso. "They have been searching for all across Miskatonic, and founded nothing."

"What kind of information?" Ratso asked, just for shake his head. "No, you know what? Don't tell me, I'm sure it has to do with some evil monster, and I don't want to have anything to do with that;" Ratso said, as he took the rest of his papers. "Have a nice day; it's good seeing an old friend."

"Ratso, wait;" Tohru told to the former enforcer, who stopped instantaneously. Damn it, why had he stopped? He couldn't help himself, if someone asked him to do something; he would do it. That was one of Ratso worse flaws. "We have been looking thorough the entire Miskatonic in search of something very important. We could… use your help."

Ratso sighed. He then folded the papers and put them inside his jacket, turning around to face his former companion and the old man. "Okay, but only because of the good old times, when Chan used to kick our ass like there was no tomorrow;" Ratso said, earning a laugh from the sumo. "Right… so, where have you been searching?"

"Everywhere;" Tohru said. "The faculties, the assembly hall, the cafeteria…"

"And the tunnels?" Ratso asked, earning a puzzled look from both chi wizards. "What? You know there are tunnels under Miskatonic, right?"

"No," answered both Uncle and Tohru in unison. They really felt stupid now; principal Waite had mentioned those during their conversation.

"I think they were built during the Cold War, with all that paranoia about nuclear holocaust…" Ratso explained. "Almost no one goes down there, anyway. Must be falling apart after all those years."

Uncle quickly shot his hands towards Ratso, taking the man by his shoulders and shaking him violently. "You must show Uncle and Tohru those tunnels! Destiny of world depends on in!"

"Yes, yes; what a surprise, the destiny of the world once again in danger;" Ratso deadpanned, taking the elder's hands from over his shoulders. "I'll show you the way, but I don't want to have anything to do with evil gnomes or zombie apocalypses, or all that…"

"Sure," Tohru said, as they started to walk, following Ratso towards one of the buildings. "Thank you, Ratso."

Slowly, a silly smile crept into the former enforcer's face. "You're welcome, big buddy. Everything for a friend."

* * *

 _Where the hell are they going now?_ ; Viper asked internally as she followed the trio of men into the basement of one of the faculties. She had to admit that their encounter with Ratso had been a surprise, but it had turned out to be a favorable outcome, since they both were on the move again. What was she doing her following them again? Oh yeah, making sure none of them died, Ace up the sleeve and all that White had said. _Well, at least no one will see me in this 'granny disguise' anymore. Seriously, if I heard another person calling me ma'am like if they were speaking with their grandma and offering me an arm in order to walk the street I swear blood will run_. _In fact…_

Viper stopped and took her hands to her face. She took the mask off, and she took herself out of the rest of the disguise after that. Now clad into her usual cat-suit and letting her long black mane to fall free in her back, Viper stretched herself. _There we go, much better. Now…_ ; she walked a bit more, making sure she wasn't noticed, and saw Ratso opening a door in the basement they were currently in; a door that led to some stairs that travelled down below. Taking each one of the three men a lantern, they started to descent the stairs. _Where are you going, guys?_ ; the former thief thought as she approached the door herself. She looked down at the stairs, seeing how old they were and how deep below they went. She started to descend too. _Where am I going?_

* * *

The Cold War had been one of the most paranoia inducing moments in humanity's history. It wasn't the thought that anyone around you could turn out to be a spy, that has happened in any wartime situation since humans are humans. But the Cold War was the first time in which the paranoia was fueled by the fear of a total, global level extermination. The fear that at any time an atomic bomb could fall from the sky and trigger a chain of events that could transform the whole planet into a wasteland… that was what really distinguished this time period from the others. And so many people thought that the best way to safe their skin was to hide underground, where the explosions and the radiation couldn't reach them. The tunnels under Miskatonic, and that actually extended under the whole Arkham, were supposedly built for that purpose. Very few knew what they really had been built for.

"Are you sure we shouldn't be going back already?" Ratso asked of the duo of chi wizards. "This place is giving me the creeps…"

"Silence, Uncle tries to concentrate;" the Chinese elder told the man while he and Tohru walked in front of him. "Can you feel it, Tohru?"

"It's the same sensation of something missing," Tohru explained. "Just… amped up. It's like walking around a black hole devoid of any chi energy."

Uncle nodded. "We are about to find something;" the elder admitted, not without joy about finally finding a trail of clues, but also worried about what they could find. Slowing down, and stopping completely after a few more steps, Uncle stopped and approached a section of the wall of the dark tunnel. He extended his hand and started to touch the wall, running his body part over the dusty and rusty stone and metal it was composed. "Here! Here it is!"

"What, did you find some sort of 'magic trail', or maybe is those willies of yours?" Ratso asked.

"No, but there is air coming from here," Uncle explained, pointing to the section of the wall with his lantern. "Tohru, it's time to put Shendu's gifts to good use."

"Shendu's what?" Ratso asked, but then he saw how Tohru's eyes lighted in flames, and how a pair of laser beams shot from them, crafting a rectangular shape around the wall, who proceeded to fall, revealing am entry to another, unknown section of the tunnels.

"Oh, secret door;" Ratso said as the three of them crossed the entry. "Wait a second; that was the magical piggy thing! I thought all talismans went missing with Shendu and his angry teenage son!"

"We regained a few, albeit there are no talismans this time," Tohru explained. "The powers are basically inside us."

"Like when the animals and Wong?" Ratso asked. "Well, good for you."

"Close your mouths!" Uncle yelled. "Were about to find something important… Aiyah…"

The trio of men had reached the end of the new tunnel, and what they found left them with their jaws dropping. It was an enormous, circular chamber made of pure stone that reminded the three men about the insides of a cathedral. At the sides of the circular center were numerous openings, doors to other smaller chambers. Turning their lanterns off, they started to walk around the enormous chamber. The walls themselves projected an eerie, greenish light all over the place, and floor, walls and ceiling were engraved with strange runes and symbols that seemed to be the producers of said greenish light. Uncle inspected the symbols, not being able to relate them to anything that he had studied in so many years. And yet he knew that they were magical in some way. Not in chi magic, that was for sure, but there was something there, the feeling of power…

"Sensei, come here;" Tohru called from one of the lateral rooms. "You will want to see this."

Going to his former apprentice's side, Uncle looked inside the room that Tohru had been inspecting. The elder had been expecting something similar to the bigger chamber, but instead he found something worse. It was a fairly small room, all of it engraved in those weird symbols too. But what troubled Uncle the most was that a strange machine was hanging from the ceiling; a machine with four long mechanical arms that ended in sharp, six-fingered claws and one central eye that surely was a camera of some type. Under the machine was a bed that reminded Uncle too much of those beds used to aid women to give birth for it to be good news. After a little of exploration, they discovered that each one of the small rooms was like that, and that the majority of them were full of stains of dried blood.

 _A parlor to give birth…_ ; Uncle thought as his insides revolted, and no power of Horse talisman was able to help him with that. Behind him, Tohru couldn't help but avoid looking at the scene. Uncle entered one of the stained chambers and touched the walls. He could almost hear the screams of pain and agony. _In order to give birth to what?_

"Something horrible happened here…" Uncle muttered in complete horror. It wasn't just the blood and the feeling of complete pain and fear that it transmitted. It was something else, like of someone had committed a sin so grave against nature that the space around the place was crying. The chi wizard felt something in the air, something much clear than the missing of chi from before. Now there wasn't anything missing, but there was something that he didn't understand. A trail of energy that he couldn't identify, the remnant of a presence so vile and mighty that even if gone decades ago, it had left such a strong mark in this place that Uncle doubted that this chamber belonged to the human world anymore. "Something horrible _was_ here…"

"Hey, guys!" Ratso called from another one of the chambers. "I found some books! And photos, there are photos too! They are women and men, and… and…" Ratso's voice cracked then, and the next thing the chi wizards heard was the sound of the man puking over the floor. When Uncle and Tohru reached him they found Ratso in hi knees, and Tohru helped him up, Uncle using the power of the Horse talisman to help the man to calm his stomach.

"Oh God," Ratso complained. "How… how could something like this… under Miskatonic…?" Ratso muttered as he pointed to the photographs.

There really were a lot of books and photos in the room the former enforcer had searched in, all of them scattered over the floor. Once they had left Ratso calmed and sitting on the ground; both the Japanese mountain of a man and the Chinese elder started to inspect the photographs and the books.

"Journals of Marcus Malone…" Uncle read aloud from one of the books, which seemed to be a diary of sorts. Before he could read, however, Tohru handled him a set of the photographs.

"Sensei, this is… this is inhuman…" the Japanese sumo said, his skin paling in disgust.

Taking the photographs, Uncle read their backsides. All of them were labeled as Whateley Project, plus a subtitle. The first one was called, ' _First Subject with J.W. and R.C._ ' and was depicting a small woman with short auburn in a white gown, accompanied by a pair of men, one of them an old man with his white hair in a ponytail, the same man that had been depicted in that painting of Dunwich, that John Whateley. The other was a middle aged man with short black hair and pale skin that seemed to be struggling to smile to the camera. The following photograph was called ' _Three months after Impregnation_ '; and showed the same woman, just pregnant. Incredibly pregnant, her belly completely inflated. The next one cut Uncle's breath and made him want to either puke the apple pie he had eaten, or to just lose his consciousness. It was called ' _Birthing and Failure_ ', and it depicted the same woman… with her belly completely torn apart, and something crawling out of it, making its way from inside out. Something the size of a child, except it was bathed in its mother's blood, and it had long, scaly limbs, and tentacles that seemed to try and take a hold of something. The little creature's jaws were closed around something that resembled an intestine… Oh god, oh god, it was _eating_ her!

Uncle threw the photographs down, and proceeded to sat on the floor hyperventilating. Tohru rushed towards him and put a hand over the elder's shoulders, trying to calm him. "This is… Uncle has never seen something like this… This is, what is all this?!"

"Evolution," a raspy voice said from the shadows. "It's called evolution, and progress, and change."

Ratso was quick to get up, and the same did Uncle, he and Tohru drawing their blowfishes as fast as they could and the sumo's eyes lighting up in fire.

"Who's there?!" Tohru asked. "Show yourself!"

"Actually, we have been here the entire time, it's not our fault that you haven't been able to see us…" said a second voice, different than the first one. This one sounded weird, as if someone was speaking underwater. "Then again, so few people are able to see for real…"

"Who are you?!" Uncle demanded this time. "Come to the light so you can receive a pieeece of Uncle! Are you responsible for these atrocities?! You servants of Eeeeevil! Uncle will teach you a lesson!"

"Evil, Good… I'd say we are more amoral than evil, but whatever;" the first voice said. "If you insist, Ephraim, let's welcome the visitors."

The first figure came into the light by jumping from the ceiling, where it had been the entire time, making sure to not drawn attention over himself… or itself, more precisely. It was a mechanical construct bigger than even Tohru, and that resembled a four legged arachnid creature. However, where the arachnid's head should be was instead a cylindrical jar full of a reddish bubbling liquid… with a brain inside of it. To the brain was connected a single eye without eyelids, looking at them curious and menacing.

The next figure was even stranger, is that was even possible. It was humanoid, no doubt about it, clad into a tidy, classical white suit. It was a man, a man smiling pleasantly towards them as he walked to the side of the arachnid robot with a brain… except the man lacked any skin, instead its muscles, tendons, and some bones being showed. Drips of blood dropped from his fingernails and chin, dirtying the edges of his sleeves and suit's neck. He was smiling, yet his eyes denoted pain; enormous and constant pain.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen;" the flayed man greeted them. "How may we help you?"

The trio of men was speechless. They could have expected anything else, a creature like the one of the subway, a giant demon but… not a man without skin and a talking brain in jar! Tohru was mildly scared of the duo in front of them, Ratso in the verge of having an aneurism. Uncle, in the other hand, was fuming, and pointing his blowfish to both men in front of him, ready to fight.

"How may you help us?!" Uncle shrieked. "Tell Uncle who you are and what kind of evil sorcery were you practicing here before he obliterates you!"

"Amoral sorcery!" the man without skin pointed out.

"And this was a work of science more like the one of sorcery," the brain in jar said after that. How was it able to talk was a mystery to all of them. "I mean, just look at me; and aside the brain, I'm a robotic construct. So, science."

"Amoral science!" the man without skin answered, laughing a bit at his own joke.

"Answer Uncle!" the elder shrieked again.

"My name is Ephraim. Ephraim Waite;" the brain in the jar answered. "Pleased to meet you all."

"Ephraim Waite… are you… are you related to principal Asenath?" Ratso asked of the brain, whose single eye focused then on him.

"Of course," Ephraim answered. "Asenath is my lovely daughter."

Silence took hold of the chamber once more, and for entire minutes no one said a thing. Then uncle redirected his blowfish to the man without skin. "And you?"

The man made an unnecessarily complicated reverence, bending over himself and raising his head quickly, making some drops of blood to fall from his head to the ground and jump into the air as he raised his head.

"Names, names… there was a time I went by Marcus Malone, then I went back to Francis White;" the man explained and his grin widened, showing in full detail how the muscles of his face tensed in order to attain that feat. None of the three men would look at a smile in the same way again. "Now, I'm just Uncle Frank. I think you are acquaintances with my grandson."

 _I knew it!_ ; Uncle thought, his mind going back at his suspicions over the Director of Section 13. "What did you do here?!"

"I told you boy, evolution;" Frank answered to the elder.

"Don't call me boy!" Uncle shrieked. "Do you know how old I am?"

"Do you know how old _we_ are?" Ephraim cut in. "We should have died decades ago of old age, yet here we continue. I'm able to do so thanks to the technology of the Fungi from Yuggoth; Francis thanks to the powers of the Black Pharaoh."

 _Black Pharaoh?_ ; Tohru thought, putting the name in his memory in order to search it later. "You two don't seem very healthy for being alive."

"Immortality comes at a price for us, big man. We aren't so lucky that we just have to touch a rock with the drawing of a dog in it to attain it!" Frank told Tohru, who narrowed his eyes.

 _They know about the talismans… but there is the possibility that they don't know about us having their powers…_ ; Tohru thought.

"Me, for example, I asked one of the big shots to make me immortal, and when he did I asked for a proof that I really was one;" Frank cackled a dry laugh. "So, what did he do? Ripped my skin from my body, trapped me for weeks without eating or drinking, entering my own mind and ravishing it; and yet I continued alive until this day!" Frank laughed again, and more blood dropped from his chin in small drops. "He has such a weird kind of humor, our Dark Prince…"

"Tell Uncle what kind of things did you in here…" Uncle demanded again, this time his blowfish starting to glow green. Tohru's did exactly the same, and both wizards readied for battle, Ratso taking clue of it and hiding behind them. "You don't want to face Uncle, and besides, you only are two, and we are three."

Frank laughed again. "And why do you think that we should be scared of you?" He clasped his hands, and both enveloped themselves in blue energy. "You aren't the only ones with sparkles, boys!"

"And besides, we are five;" Ephraim explained in a cold demeanor. "And you are actually four."

"Four?" Tohru asked aloud, a question that made Frank's smile to widen even more, and his cheeks to start opening slightly.

"Oh, Pickman-boys! Bring Uncle Frank the intruder!" Frank yelled at the top of his lungs.

Violent noises were heard then all around the chamber as a result of something happening outside, in the tunnels. Noises of blows, of hits and things being broken. Then came a scream, a female scream; and then one of the walls of the chamber trembled, a hole being opened in it by sheer brute force and someone being thrown inside the chamber.

Before the stunned sight of the trio of regular human men, Viper landed with the same grace of a sack of potatoes. Tohru kept pointing his weapon towards the duo in front of him, while Uncle quickly kneeled and started to heal her with the power of the Noble Horse.

"Thief! Thief, answer Uncle!" the elder said as he poured the powers of the noble horse over her. "Viper, don't you dare to die on me..."

"I knew you remembered my name," Viper muttered weakly, opening her eyes. After the power of the Noble Horse had done as much as it could, the former thief came to her feet. "Thank you."

"What are you doing here?" Tohru demanded to know.

"I was following you," Viper answered. Noticing the suspicious and blaming glares the men were shooting her, she put her hands in front of her. "It's not what you think! I'll explain to you latter, but there are three monsters out there that..." Viper took notice of the presence of Frank and Ephraim then, her expression clearly the one of someone disturbed. "Okay... make it to five monsters."

"That's a rude thing to say, lady!" Frank yelled. "I prefer the term 'abomination'. It has such a nice ring to it..."

"This guy's not well in the head;" Ratso commented.

"What do you mean with other three?" Tohru asked again, but the answer came literally jumping from the same hole Viper had come by.

Landing behind the pair of modified humans were now three tall humanoid beings, one with white fur, the other red and the last one blue. All of them were naked, their quite massive manhood moving in the air. Albeit bipedal, they had also canine features, her faces resembling the ones of a bulldog; and their arms were as long as their bodies, which weren't precisely small either. How tall were they? Two, maybe three meters? And they seemed strong, incredibly strong, their bodies incredibly muscled. The three creatures were looking at them with cruel expressions, and licking their lips.

"Good job, team!" Frank told the three beings. "Gentlemen, lady; meet George, Thomas and Ben Pickman, the sons of our dear friend Richard Pickman;" Frank pointed towards Uncle and the others. "Boys, meet your lunch!"

"Francis..." Ephraim said, putting a stop to the flayed man's speech. "You know that Ghouls only eat corpses."

"I know," Frank replied. "But it was such a good one-liner."

"You are too much in love with theatrics;" Ephraim replied. "You were so much more rational years ago."

"Years ago the Crawling Chaos hadn't ripped my skin apart, neither had he entered my mind!" Frank protested. "And besides, they won't be a... hey, hey, wait a minute!"

Frank shot a bluish lightning bolt from his hand that struck the entrance to the huge chamber and therefore stopping Uncle, Tohru, Ratso and Viper from trying to escape.

"Where you trying to escape in the middle of our monologue?!" an enraged Frank asked them. "That is not something polite! Go get them, boys!"

"Yes, Uncle Frank!" the trio of Ghouls shouted (surprising the quartet of regular humans as they did so, as none of them were expecting for them to talk), jumping in the air and landing in the spot the others were moments ago, the humans having avoided it. Uncle ell due to the sudden jumping, yet he got to his feet quickly, shooting a green blast of chi against the red-furred one, striking it and sending the Ghoul a few feet away, smoke rising from his body.

"Old man, old man;" the Ghoul said. "Is that the best you can do? Thomas won't get down so easily!" the Ghoul pointed to his chest proudly. "Thomas is a very strong and resilient boy!"

"Then come and take piece of Uncle!" the Chinese elder shrieked, shooting even more chi beams from his blowfish, adding both quantity and quality to them. Another good thing about having the power of the Horse talisman was that his stamina and energy could be replenished during fight, so even if he couldn't keep fighting forever, he could do so for longer periods of time.

Meanwhile, Viper graciously evaded Ben's (the blue Ghoul) attacks, while Ratso kept running from one corner of another of the chamber; doing the same. The thief evaded another punch of the creature by jumping and pivoting over the Ghoul's shoulder, only for the monster to try and bite her in midair, fortunately only biting apart a piece of her hair… which the ghoul proceeded to swallow anyway.

"Funny woman, funny woman… you didn't see big brother George coming for you, and he hit you, hit you;" the Ghoul clacked then. "Your hair tastes funny. If I kill you, would big brother let me eat you first? Does the rest of your body taste funny?" the monster's member became erect then, as if the thought of eating Viper's dead body had excited him.

 _And I thought I would never meet something more disgusting than a demon or an Oni_ ; Viper thought with pure repulsion.

While Uncle fought Thomas, Viper clashed with Ben, and Ratso tried to find cover; Tohru was having difficulties with George, the white-furred one. Every time he tried to hit the monster either with a chi blast or with a eye-beam, the thing avoided the incoming attack instead of blocking it with his body, and when it was clear to the Ghoul that he was forced to fight from a distance, he nailed his claws in the floor and ripped a piece of it apart and threw it to Tohru, who obliterated it with his heat eye blast. From the smoke of the small explosion, George appeared roaring, claws extended with the intention of gutting Tohru; who only saved himself thanks to raising a small shield of chi energy in the right time. George used the shield as supporting point in order to jump backwards in the air.

"You are… smarter than the others;" Tohru recognized, eyeing the Ghoul.

"Someone has to maintain a cool head in this family, especially since Papa Richard's departure;" George explained. "I should've killed the woman when I saw her, yet I obeyed Uncle Frank. I won't commit the same failure twice!" George roared as he launched another attack.

And while the others fought, the flayed man and the brain in the jar continued to watch the show like a married old couple watches ducks eating tiny bits of bread in a lake in a beautiful afternoon of autumn.

"They are fighting them pretty well," Ephraim commented coldly. "Considering that a Ghoul can rip a regular adult man apart with just his hands, I mean. It's quite the feat."

"Indeed. Yet they wouldn't have come this far if they weren't so skilled;" Frank gave his friend the reason. "Perhaps it is time to be… colorfully pragmatic, don't you agree my friend?"

"Allow me," Ephraim commented as the back of his arachnid-like body opened, revealing a small cannon with a missile in it. The brain in a jar pointed his weapon towards the group fighting, and the missile ignited. Hearing it due to their inhuman hearing the Ghouls jumped out from the scene, and the humans were left alone with the incoming impact.

"Tohru! Barrier! Now!" Uncle yelled to his former apprentice and both of them started to chant as fast as they could. The sound of them both repeating and repeating the words ' _Yu Mo Gui Gwai Fai Di Zao_ ' filled the air, and in mere seconds the four humans were surrounded by a sphere of thick green energy not different from the one Uncle had used to momentarily hold back the Shoggoth. However, this one covered a larger piece of ground, and was only half a sphere, successfully separating the humans from the trio of Ghouls and the two modified humans; letting them with access to the exit and the enemy with no option but wait. The missile impacted the wall of green chi and exploded, not making a crack in it. The fact that this barrier had been casted by both Uncle and Tohru helped in that matter.

"Impressive," Ephraim commented, while the three Ghouls headed towards the barrier and started to punch it. "Stop it George, you will only make your hands to get hurt."

"But, Uncle Ephraim…" the eldest Ghoul protested, but frank silenced him by raising a hand.

"This little skirmish of ours ends in a draw," the flayed man stated, licking a small drop of blood from his cheek. The he extended one arm towards the heavens in an overdramatic manner. "Yet this shield won't hold us back forever, we shall dance again, once the wall falls!" saying those words, frank lowered his hands and another bluish lightning shot from it, striking the barrier and effectively cracking it.

 _This barrier is twice as strong as the one used to restrain that creature back in San Francisco_ ; Uncle thought. _Yet he cracked it with a single attack. This man is no amateur in the arts of magic, he may be far mightier than Daolong Wong_. Uncle let the thought to sink in for a moment. _If he is White-man's grandfather, then the woman in Dunwich may really be a witch, and the man back at that office in Section 13, a sorcerer as skillet as this one_.

"We have to go," Uncle said as he turned around. "Powers of Noble Animals or not, this battle is one we cannot win. We need to exit this city immediately."

"Yes sensei," Tohru obeyed, making signs to Viper and Ratso to follow him to the tunnel.

"And where do you think you will go?!" Frank shrieked from the other side of the, clacking a disturbing laugh after that. "This city's underground is filled with Ghouls, and in the moment we go out of here we will have a legion following you all! This is what happens when you stick your nose where you shouldn't! You'll never find the Book of the Dead!"

"What does flayed-man know about book?!" Uncle shrieked, heading back at the enemies side, where Frank had started to cast small bluish blast from his hands, cracking the wall of energy even more. Why did he know about their search for the _Necronomicon_? What was going on? And more importantly, what did these monsters do to those girls?!

"Sensei, the barrier won't hold on for much longer, we have to go!" Tohru told the elder.

"Right, right…" Uncle muttered, and headed towards the tunnel once again. "But Uncle won't forget what he has seen in those photographs, his family won't forget what you did here. I don't know your purpose, and if you really did it for evolution, then you are the wickedest men I have ever known…"

"So high and mighty, boy;" Frank clacked, and then his smile widened again. Yet, it was different from the one from before. The previous ones had been cheerful, albeit creepy. This one, however, was plain sadistic, and it was testimony of how much the darkness and madness had eaten away the soul of the good natured reporter that once travelled to Berlin with his friends. "And yet, so hypocrite…"

"You speak about justice, yet you let a good man die."

Uncle froze in his walk. He looked back at the flayed man, who had stopped cracking the barrier. He stared eyes wide opened at the man with no skin, frank smiling cruel at the Chinese elder, and his eyes not even blinking. He really wanted to burn the socked image of Uncle in his memory.

"What?" Uncle asked weakly. He felt all his strength going away from his body, and right now no chi spell or brave and stern words came to his mouth. "What did you just said?"

"Search for the Whateley Project, boy;" Frank told the elder. "Maybe you will find some answers, or maybe you will discover that you had them from the start."

"How do you know that sentence?!" Uncle shrieked, his eyes denoting desperation.

His words only made the flayed man's cruel smile to grow even more. "How do I know?" he said arrogantly before conjuring a small blast in the tip of his index finger and shooting it to the barrier, effectively piercing it and leaving a small hole. "Wouldn't you want to hear the story?"

"Sensei!" Tohru called again from the other end of the secret tunnel, and Uncle forced himself to go after his former apprentice. Behind him, Francis White and Ephraim Waite remained silent, the trio of Ghouls of the Pickman family at their backs. All the way back up to Miskatonic's grounds, Uncle could still feel the horrendous smile of the flayed man creeping at his back, his words tainting his resolve, mocking him. His mind trailed back at the runes in the enormous chamber, and for a second he thought that he had seen them somewhere else… long ago.

* * *

 ** _Miskatonic Campus; Afternoon_**

Noon had reached Arkham, and by extension, Miskatonic, the sun starting to descend over the horizon as night approached. Armitage had returned a quarter of an hour after leaving Jackie and Jade with the copy of the _Necronomicon_ , carrying a bunch of papers that apparently recorded the whereabouts of the original book. He told them that decades ago the book had been sent to something called 'Esoteric Order of Dagon', back in Innsmouth. Apparently it was some kind of religious order that had quite the following in the coast-side town, and the Book of the Dead had been some kind of gift towards them, since they apparently used it in their masses. Armitage considered them some kind of occultist cult, and he confessed to the archeologist and teenage agent that he hoped to visit them and conduct an investigation over their practices some day, if his wife ever found the strength to leave Arkham for at least a week.

Armitage gave Jackie all the information he had about the order (which wasn't very much) and after desiring them the best, he bid the two Chans farewell, and uncle and niece left the Orne Library, leaving the chief librarian obsessed with occultism yet believing it nothing but a myth waving friendly at them in the door.

Jackie and Jade started to search for Uncle and Tohru, and they found them shortly after, resting over a bench in the middle of the campus. They seemed tired and worn out, their clothes dirtied on dust and torn in some parts. Yet the most surprising thing was that they weren't alone. Ratso, of all people, was with them, his eyes wide open in shock; and so was there Viper, the ex-thief the only one remaining in her feet. In the moment Jackie and Jade arrived, she looked away.

"Uncle?" Jackie asked, confused to the extreme. One thing was appearing tired, and a much more different one was appearing as if they had just get out of a war zone. "Uncle what…?"

"Nephew," Uncle said, and his tone gave away the uneasiness and worry inside the elder's old body. "Nephew we have… discovered _something_."

Jade and Jackie exchanged looks, remembering the small passage they had read in a mere copy of the Necronomicon. ""We too;" they answered.

For the rest of the time that separated afternoon from deep night, both groups exchanged information. Jackie and Jade told the others about their discoveries in the pages of the fake _Necronomicon_ , and the location of the original one back in Innsmouth. However, the big revelation came from uncle and Tohru, as they related they discovery of the chamber, of the photographs describing those horrors, of their encounter with the Ghouls… and with both Ephraim Waite and Francis White.

 _Shit…_ ; Jade and Viper thought at the same time upon discovering the connection between the flayed man and the Director of Section 13.

"So it's not only what Shendu told us..." Tohru commented. "The enemy seems to have eyes everywhere. And this King in Yellow seems to be only the tip of the iceberg."

"This isn't what I signed for..." Viper commented in almost a whisper, earning a suspicious gaze from Jackie.

"What are you doing here anyway?" Jackie asked of the former thief.

"Thief was following us," Uncle informed. "She promised to explain, and this seems like a veeeery good moment to do it."

Five pair of eyes fell upon Viper, and the ex-thief grew more nervous with any second that passed. She took air and out of her body repeatedly, and then eyed the people in front of her. She didn't utter a word, though.

"Well?" Jackie asked, crossing his arms over his chest, yet Viper didn't say a thing.

Jade, meanwhile, was able to tie the loose ends and connect the points with one another. Viper showing up armed at their rescue in their fight with the Shoggoth; then appearing here a day after them, when the only person that knew about them being here was...

"Shit, the Director sent you here, didn't he?" Jade asked, and Viper continued in complete silence.

"Viper..." Jackie said, his eyes narrowing, and Viper averted his gaze once more. "Viper!"

"Yes," came the only word of the former thief.

"Aiyah!" Uncle shrieked. "Uncle knew that thief couldn't distance herself from path of Evil!"

"It's not what you think!" Viper protested, but Uncle continued his rant.

"Traitor, mole! Seize her, Uncle will prepare spell and turn her into a frog!" the elder wizard said enraged, albeit his statement was more comical than threatening.

"Sensei, we should let Viper explain herself;" Tohru said in order to calm the elderly man. "She has always been a good friend of this family; it would be bad to condemn her before hearing an explanation."

Uncle calmed down, albeit he continued to look at Viper with accusatory eyes, expecting an explanation. Jade and Tohru remained the calmest of the bunch, while Ratso didn't seem to be paying attention. Jackie, meanwhile, had noticed how incredibly tense Viper seemed to be. She had her arms crossed too, but she seemed to be clenching herself with them.

"Viper..." Jackie called, and then he shook his head. "Esther, please."

"Don't call me that;" Viper replied, flinching slightly at the mention of her real name. "That's not my name."

"Viper," Jackie pleaded again, and this time his voice was soft and gentle. "Please."

"Fine!" Viper said. "If you insist..."

* * *

 ** _San Francisco, Section 13. Days ago._**

Viper had been called by Director White. This could only mean two things, payment or mission; and considering that she had just ended and got paid for the last one, this was certainly a new appointment. However, as she was standing there, hearing the fat man's explanation while he sat pleasantly behind his desk, she was surprised by her new mission.

"You want me to do what?" a stunned Viper asked.

"I want you to depart to Massachusetts, follow the Chans when they arrive to Arkham," White explained in his usual deep voice, drumming his only quintet of fingers over his desk; "and inform me if they stumble upon something... out of the normal."

"Why?" Viper asked again, growing suspicious. One thing was to follow potential demon hosts around and aid Jade and the others from the shadows; but this felt like plain espionage.

"The success of the mission is conditioned…" White started to say.

"By the number of people knowing about it;" Viper ended the sentence for him. "Funny thing is that I'm not your employee, I never was to begin with, and thus I don't have to hold your stupid rules, or obey your orders. You paid me enough last time, so thank you, and good bye."

Viper turned around ready to leave and not see the Director never again in her life. Men like White always played dangerous games, and she wasn't going to be a mere pawn in his schemes, whatever they were. However, as she opened the door slightly, the deep voice of the Director sounded again at her back, and she forced herself to stop.

"Wouldn't you do it for a cure?" White asked, and Viper's grip over the door's knob tightened.

"There is no cure," Viper said dry and coldly. "Not yet. That's the reason I demanded a fortune from you, remember? In order to pay a bunch of greedy assholes to find a cure for my mother."

"The fact that no one has been able to see something doesn't mean it doesn't exist;" White commented. "Believe me when I say there is a cure. I have a bunch of friends living here in San Francisco that can take your mother back from that disease's grip." Viper wasn't looking at the Director, yet she could feel the smug grin in the man's face. "So, do we have a deal?"

Viper remained in the spot she was for entire minutes. She looked beyond the small crack he had opened the door, to the hall of Section 13 full of agents walking around. She sighed and closed the door as she turned around.

"Deal."

* * *

 ** _Miskatonic. Now_**

"So let get me this straight;" Jade interrupted the two adults before something could really start talking. "If what that copy of that book says it's true; then there is a bunch of monsters out there with the power to destroy our planet, and the reason they haven't done it already is a mystery. The Director of Section 13, who's also my and Captain Black's boss; his grandfather who can somehow live without skin and is best friends with a talking brain in a jar; that old woman from Dunwich and surely a lot of other people are probably working for them. And to top it all, we have practically walked straight into their territory, right?"

"You have… summed it up quite well;" Tohru commented.

"Viper, I… I didn't have any idea;" Jackie said as an apology upon learning the ex-thief's reasons for being there, and this time the one shooting him an angry look was the former thief.

"No, of course you didn't," Viper said rudely.

"You should have told us," Jackie continued to speak. "Uncle has the power of healing of the Horse Talisman. We can help you; we can help your mother. You should have told us." _You should have told me, but I know you couldn't_ , Jackie thought. _I really am an idiot, aren't I?_

Viper didn't utter any word after that, but her gaze softened after hearing Jackie's words. Magic could do a lot of things, but could it heal her mother? It was worth a try; a far better try than playing puppet to that man. She should have thought of this option sooner… yet she didn't, not with her feelings for Jackie. _I really am an idiot…_ ; she thought too.

"And what do we do now?" Jade asked after what seemed to be the appropriate number of minutes of silence.

"The book," Uncle said suddenly. "Flayed-man said that we won't be able to find the book…"

"The original copy of the _Necronomicon_ is, according to Dr. Armitage, in Innsmouth;" Jackie explained. "In possession of something called Esoteric Order of Dagon."

"Evil cult, no doubt;" Uncle said. "But we should retrieve the _Necronomicon_ from them. It may be a key to their plans."

"Shouldn't we inform Captain Black of Director's White true colors?" Tohru asked them, not being able to notice the pun he had accidentally made. "He seems to have a connection with all these monsters, and if that's true, Black could be in danger. The creature of the subway could have been his doing too."

"This is insane…" Jade muttered. "But we shouldn't inform Black. If the Director discovers that he knows something, he may take actions in order to take the Captain out of the picture. It's better if we don't inform him."

"Then we should depart to Innsmouth;" Uncle proclaimed. "And from now on, think about every person that gets interest in us as an _enemy_." _And I should search information about this Whateley Project flayed-man spoke about. How did he know those words? Could it be that… no, it cannot be, and yet… I need to find an answer._

"But _how_ do we travel to Innsmouth at this hour?" Jackie asked. "If we wait for another bus, then…"

"I have a van."

All the eyes focused then in Ratso, who had been quiet until that very moment. "What? Finn, Chow and I use it for our travels! This year we're going to the Grand Canyon."

"You… you are going to come with us, Ratso?" Jackie asked of the former enforcer, quite surprised.

"Mom didn't raise an idiot, Chan;" the man declared. "I may have worked a lot to get this position, but I won't remain here so some creeps can eat me. I don't wanna die, and I know that if I stick close to you, then I'll remain alive. And you need someone with a van."

The Chan Clan and Viper exchanged glances. They needed to get out of Arkham as soon as possible, and Ratso could provide the means to do it. Jackie sighed again, and he thought that he had been doing that too much lately. "Okay Ratso. Take us to your van…" Jackie said as the former enforcer rose from his seat in the bench and started to walk into his house's direction.

"And to Innsmouth then."

* * *

 ** _Arkham at night; Asenath Waite's residence_**

Principal Asenath's house wasn't something extraordinary, just your average two stories tall house in your average neighborhood. And yet, this house was well-known in Arkham, more for the company that Asenath brought inside than anything else. It wasn't that people were bothered by the constant in and out of Asenath accompanied by some girl in her twenties, no. It was the fact that it was a _different_ twenty year old woman every time. The one accompanying the principal that night was a Latina girl with curly hair and more bosom and rear than brain and common sense. She seemed a bit drunk to the bystanders too, as she walked leaning over the arm of the busty principal, and her cheeks seemed a bit too red. The eyes were red too… maybe not drunk, but high?

"There we are, dove;" Asenath said as they approached the door of her house, which the principal proceeded to open. "Make yourself at home, sweet home."

The Latina did as said, and she started to undress herself. Asenath couldn't retain a chuckle as she saw how the girl lost her clothes and started to dance completely naked. Sometimes she thought that her powers of mental suggestion made things too easy, that she would surely lose the thrill of the hunt… but she didn't. She didn't know what her father had given the Mi-Go for her treatment, but she was utmost pleased. She sometimes asked herself why her father had asked for becoming a frigging brain in a jar instead of the same modifications as her… but then she always remembered that her father had always been a man of science, and that the opportunity to experience being a living brain couldn't have been passed over by someone as Ephraim Waite.

Asenath served herself a cup of whine, and then made signs to the girl to follow her to her room. There, the Principal undressed too, and walked to her bed. There, Asenath kissed the girl, first in the breasts, then in the mouth. Then in the neck. She had always thought that it was better to enjoy the starters before going directly for the main dish.

"Asenath…" the girl said in something between talking and moaning. "Asenath, Asenath… tell me, do you love me?"

The kisses stopped then for a second, and a nostalgic smile curled then in Asenath's lips. "Love you? Let me tell you something, my well-endowed, stupid and hypnotized bitch. There is only one woman in this world and any other that I will ever love."

Asenath opened her mouth then, and her canines became two long, needle-like fangs, longer than a grown man's index fingers. She lowered her mouth against the Latina's neck once again, and her fangs nailed slightly in the woman's dark skin, making small lines of blood to pour from the little wounds.

"And her name is Wilma White."

The fangs pierced the skin and then the muscle, the veins and bones. And so Asenath found herself drinking from the Latina, except that the Waite woman wasn't drinking her blood. The fangs and her body hadn't been redesigned to simply drink blood, for blood was irrelevant. There were five ways, all of the explained in any of the 108 original copies of the _Necronomicon_ ; five ways to attain immortality, to enlarge one's lifespan. Having your brain transferred to a stronger body; transferring your mind into a younger one; moving your astral form to the Dreamlands; being granted a wish of eternal life by one of the Gods; or eating another's life-force. Asenath Waite's body had been redesigned in order to attain the last one. And so she drank the girl's life, the girl's energy, strength and time; adding them to her own. And who would miss this one? No one, Asenath was careful enough to always choose the girls with no ties, or with family so far away that in the moment they discovered the majestic bat had eaten their dove, the mistress of Miskatonic would have long ago disposed of the body.

She drained the girl, and when she felt satisfied, Asenath made her fangs to get out of the lifeless sack of flesh's neck, and they retracted to be normal canines again. Dead, the girl in front of her was dead… dead over her bed. Asenath sighed internally; she really needed to grow out of her obsession with foreplay. But she wouldn't, that wasn't her style. She put on a gown and headed back to her living room with the intention of serving herself another cup of wine. As she walked, she noted how her skin tensed, how her breasts raised slightly and her muscles strengthen under her skin. _The things a girl must do to remain pretty_ ; Asenath thought, her appearance the one of a twenty-three year old woman now. As she reached the living room and drank, however, she noticed that she wasn't alone in the house anymore. Damn it, she hated when he did this kind of things.

"Hello father;" Asenath greeted plainly.

"Hello daughter," Ephraim greeted coldly, his spider-like mechanical form coming out of the shadows. "I take that you had recently eaten." Ephraim looked at his daughter's attire with his one eye. "Maybe you should be wearing something more… modest."

"If you had arrived minutes ago, you could have found me eating;" Asenath answered as she sipped from her cup. "And why I should dress more modestly? You lost your libido with the rest of your of body. With one important part, if I recall correctly."

"But I surely didn't!" came Francis White's voice next, directly from the house's kitchen, from where he emerged shortly afterwards, a small piece of cheese in his flayed hand that he took to his mouth from time to time. "And believe me when I say that I still enjoy the view of a good pair of bouncing tits as any man does; even if a boner hurts like hell without any skin."

"Good night, Uncle Frank;" Asenath greeted the flayed man with the same enthusiasm as she had greeted her own father. "I take this is really important for the two of you to show at _my_ home at this hours of night."

"You let the family to run free around Miskatonic, Asenath;" Ephraim said. "Two of them ended in the tunnels, in the chamber of the Project."

"I should have demolished that place years ago…" Asenath muttered, and took the rest of the content of the cup in one gulp. She served herself another one after that.

"If the Pickmans hadn't distracted themselves with that pawn that my grandson sent after them, the wizards may be dead by now!" Frank protested, eating the rest of the cheese he had taken without permission. "Do you know what could have happened to us if any of them had died before the appropiate time?!"

"I don't know… Wilma and I to the coils of little Johnny Divine; father to Lord Dagon;" Asenath's lips curved into a small smile then. "And you to Lord Nyarlathotep."

"Don't play with me, child!" Frank shrieked. "We were lucky that your father and I were there to begin with! If a failure like this happens again…!"

"It won't, right?" Asenath cut in. "I spoke with Armitage, the good old man told them that the original copy of the _Necronomicon_ is in Innsmouth, and they had surely headed there. There is nothing to worry."

Frank spat blood over the carpet, his eyes brightening in anger. "I'll tell the Pickman boys they have another of your leftovers to take to their peers. Good night, Ephraim, good luck with putting some sense into your daughter's head;" the flayed man proclaimed before disappearing in a flash of blue light.

"You shouldn't talk to him like that," Ephraim told Asenath. "We were lucky that Francis was able to make the elder wizard believe that the _Necronomicon_ needs to be protected from them. And Whites are cruel men, you know that much."

"You told me what you needed to, right father?" Asenath told him. "Then go away."

"Asenath, I am your father. You know I care for you." Ephraim muttered a his arachnid mechanical body approached the woman, and one of her mechanical appendages reached for her shoulder. The touch was cold to her, and he didn't feel anything.

"Care for me?" Asenath remarked in a sarcastic form. "You let that madman you call a friend to use his own daughter to attain your damned goals."

"Wilma was the best candidate;" Ephraim said as he took his robotic leg from her shoulder and crept a few meters away. "Being the consort of the Lurker at the Threshold is a great honor anyway; and Wilma loves her children. You are letting your own emotions to be a bias."

"Not all of us can get rid of those as easy as you did, old man;" Asenath said through gritted teeth. "Get out of my house."

"Fine," Ephraim declared, crawling his way away from Asenath. He would surely open a window, climb to the roof and then jump from one to another until reaching the abandoned house in which he had raised Asenath. "You are right, daughter. Not all of us can get rid of emotions. Have a good night."

Asenath was left alone in her home, waiting for the Ghouls to show up and take care of the corpse of the girl. She emptied the bottle of wine after her father had gone out, and headed towards the kitchen in search for more. She didn't want to be very serene when the Ghouls arrived and some of them made commentaries about her body. They always made commentaries about her body. It was a shame the female Ghouls always remained in the tunnels. Asenath opened a new bottle of wine, served herself another cup and drank it. in her drunkenness, her mind travelled back to her youth, where Wilma White had taken her first kiss, and her heart too.

And so passed the days and nights of these monsters of Arkham, nothing but pawns in bigger monsters' schemes. Cruel and greedy humans that wanted the world… without wanting to gave anything in return.

* * *

 **Author Notes: I hope you enjoyed your read. Biggest chapter of the fic so far, but I really wanted to go over Arkham quickly and make the Chans to go to Innsmouth already. We will spend much more time there, I assure you. But hey, ten chapters and finally the whole Chan Clan (plus Viper; and Ratso, my favorite enforcer, whose job at Miskatonic was mentioned in another chapter) is catching up in how weird the stuff they are dealing with is; and in that obviously bad guy back in San Francisco is a bad guy. Speaking of San Francisco, we will go back there in the next chapter, which will be one of those 'Stand Alone' things with Captain Black. What? Did you really think I brought Valmont back in the game with the Ice Gang Crew to focus solely in the Chans? Wrong! Also, remember that quote from chapter one that was related to Uncle and that wasn't mentioned again until now? Well, well, well, it seems to be part of a bigger thing. Also, Uncle Frank, the flayed and (even more) insane version of Francis White, is a reference to Hellraiser (I got tempted to make him say the 'Come to daddy' line, but that would have been creepy even for me). See you all next chapter, have a nice day or night.**

 **Bye Bye!**


	11. Captain Black's Bizarre Adventure

**Disclaimer: I don't own Jackie Chan Adventures; JCA and all its characters are the property of Phil Weinstein, Frank Squillace and Jackie Chan himself.**

 **A/N: There we go, chapter eleven. As I mentioned in the previous one, this chapter will be a trip back to San Francisco in order to see how Captain Black, the rest of Section 13, Valmont and the Ice Gang Crew are doing. On a side note, I would like to thank author goldenpurple for the review of last chapter. Please, read and enjoy! For more notes, see end of the chapter.**

* * *

Jackie Chan Adventures

Out of the Corner of the Eye

Chapter eleven

Captain Black's Bizarre Adventure

* * *

 **From the journals of Marcus Malone. Eleventh entry. August of 1966**

I… haven't returned to this writings in quite the time, it seems. You will have to blame the life of a father about that. Raising Wilma has been… quite the piece of work, actually; especially now that she has hit adolescence. Sixteen years, sixteen years gone with such an ease… Last night, Ephraim and Asenath were visiting us, alongside the rest of the members of the Project, in order to discuss our advances in contacting the Outer Gods and tying to work with them. Until now working with them, who are more natural forces than beings in comparison with the Great Old ones; has been nothing but an endless series of failures. The girls didn't survive even for a second; and the bodies we tried to use as vessels for _Them_ were quickly either driven insane, died, or simply exploded. But I think we are reaching a satisfactory end, even if slowly. Our dear Robert Black has actually been able to make modifications in the ritual in order to summon an Outer God in a humanoid form. Thus, we have been able to meet the Black Pharaoh; Lord Nyarlathotep. His aid and counsel has been of great help but there is… You see, _They_ … _They_ want Wilma. _They_ want my little, innocent daughter to be the next candidate. Lord Nyarlathotep has assured me that there is not risk for her life but… but for my daughter to become the consort of the Lurker at the Threshold… I suppose it's a great honor, right? Right? So I have accepted. Since then Asenath seems to have taken a hating to me. I think she has been in love with my daughter her entire live. I mean, last night she forced Ephraim to let her stay sleeping in our house, and in the night, I opened the door to the bedroom I share with my wife a bit and I was able to spot Asenath slipping inside Wilma's room. When I returned to the bed Lavinia commented that she found it incredibly adorable. I did too. I wish the situation could be different, that those two girls could really spend some time with each other; that they could really fall in love. But tomorrow, we will perform the ritual. And my daughter will mate with Lord Yog-Sothoth. It is a great honor. Right?

Right?

* * *

 ** _San Francisco; an abandoned warehouse_**

The Mi-Go was a species of experimentation. Their whole culture, nay, their whole existence could be summarized in the search of new things, the experimentation with those things, and the search of intuition. Yes, the Mi-Go lacked intuition, and thus, their interest in humanity was justified, as in their conduction of experiments with the human species, they thought that they could attain that emotion. But for that they needed resources, and in order to attain resources the Mi-Go made deals. In exchange of something, the Mi-Go asked for bodies of human beings, the most varied, the better. So, when the Humanoid-Shoggoth appeared in the gates of the lair that the Bastard of the Key and the Gate had provided with a container full of human beings, the Mi-Go had accepted his demands. He wanted for his three companions to be upgraded, and the Mi-Go had done the best they could. Now, in this 'warehouse' where apparently the Humanoid-Shoggoth operated, one of the Fungi from Yuggoth made his crustacean claws to rub each other while contemplating the results of the upgrading.

Scattered around the whole warehouse, the three members of the Ice Gang were clad in their usual uniforms, ready to display their new abilities. The first one to do so was DJ fist, the silent and bulky man nailing his hands in the ground and proceeding to rip a piece of the floor like it was butter, throwing in the air like a ball.

" _Enhanced strength, speed and stamina are a trait that all of the subjects share_ , _alongside a healing factor_ ;" the Mi-Go explained. " _However, each one has been granted an unique individual ability by Mi-Go_."

As the piece of the floor started to fall over him, DJ Fist raised his arms and suddenly, both upper parts of them started to rotate over their own axis, the elbows twisting in an unnatural way. The rotation of both body parts started to accelerate, until the movement created a pair of tornadoes over the goon's arms. The pair of tornadoes shot towards the piece of stone that was falling towards DJ Fist, and in a matter of seconds, it was completely torn to dust.

" _Yes, this human has been granted a Wind Mode;_ " the Mi-go continued its explanation. " _His body modified in order to create powerful windstorms by fast movements that can crush the hardest of rocks_."

"Yo, Fist! Nice moves there!" MC Cobra shouted from his spot in the warehouse. "But check mine!" As soon as uttering those words, MC raised his arms and blood vessels shot from both sides and back of his body. Displaying some of his Kung-Fu abilities, he started to move, making blood to pour from the vessels and be shot in drops that resembled bullets. The blood collided with some of the girders that were around. Wherever the shots of blood touched, the matter melted until it was nothing but a boiling liquid. "Ha! Talk about being on fire, man!" MC Cobra said upon witnessing the results of his new powers.

" _The Heat Mode grants the body the ability to raise its temperature to 500 Celsius degrees without harming the user. It also grant a second set of blood vessels with their own blood;_ " the Mi-Go explained again. " _In the moment of exiting the body, the blood will be more similar to magma than blood, melting evens steel_."

"Awesome!" Mc Cobra yelled in pure joy. "Yo Ice, what's up with your thing?"

Strikemaster Ice had remained arms crossed over his chest the entire time, waiting for the showcasing of his companions to end. He shook his head slightly and a smug grin appeared in his face. "Me? Remember when those old champs at the temple taught us to use swords? All that crap about 'feeling the blade'? Well, this good old pal Strikemaster Ice is the blade now dude!"

Extending both his arms, Ice clenched his fists. Upon doing so, both his forearms opened and curved blades similar to scimitars appeared from them, supported by the small martial artist's bones. He swung the pair of blades in combination with his Kung-Fu skills, jumping in the air and quickly striking one of the girders that MC Cobra had already damaged. The blond small man landed in front of the girder, not even looking at it. "Wait for it…" he said, pointing a finger upwards. At those words the girder fell to the ground cut in thin and small pieces. However, Ice didn't seem finished yet, as he pointed one of his blades towards one of the warehouse's wall. The blade started to glow in white light, as if it was charging energy, and when Ice swung it an energy attack was shot, striking the wall and letting a serious slice in it. "Score! Strikemaster Ice has laser beams now, baby!"

" _The Light Mode, one of the greatest achievements of Mi-Go upon experimenting with humanity_ ;" the creature spoke again. " _Not only able to cut almost anything, but also shot powerful energy slicers_."

"To think we lost so much time thinking about the powers that gecko-boy gave us…" MC Cobra complained as he and DJ Fist approached the leader of their trio.

"So, what do you think about this, V-boss?" Ice asked aloud, and his answer came in the form of Valmont, stepping out of the shadows and standing right beside the Mi-Go.

"I like what I have seen," Valmont said to the trio of men as a sinister smile appeared in his face. "Everyone knows the plan?"

"We got it, bossman!" Strikemaster Ice. "The Ice Gang will get you free room to do your handiwork!"

"Good," Valmont said. He then turned his head slightly to the Fungi from Yuggoth. "Your services here aren't needed anymore."

" _It was a pleasure to make deals with you, Shoggoth in human form_ ;" the creature said as it started to leave. " _Mi-Go takes that their offer about being experimented on has been denied?_ "

"I politely decline;" Valmont answered. He wasn't going to let those things to experiment on him just to know how he had gained control over his new body. Not in a million years.

" _Then Mi-Go bids farewell_ ;" the creature said before exiting the warehouse via am opening to the sewers.

Valmont stretched his limbs and turned again to his three new and hopefully more competent enforcers. "Gentlemen, let's get to work."

* * *

 ** _Section 13_**

"Okay Captain, just a couple of more adjustments…" Kepler, head scientist of Section 13 told Captain Black as he adjusted a robotic arm to where the one the bald man had lost was until their encounter with the Shoggoth. The scientist rubbed his thick brown beard as he tightened the screws in the Captains new metallic body part, especially around where the metal met with the flesh. "There we go. I should warn you," Kepler said as he pressed some buttons in a keyboard at his side that was connected to the robotic arm by some cables. "The connection between the arm's interface and your nervous system is going to hurt. A lot."

"Just do it, Kepler;" Captain Black told his subordinate while laying over a metallic table in his agency. He had exited the hospital a few days ago, just to find that not only Jackie but his whole family had gone into some trip to Massachusetts. He needed to be back on action, the sooner the better, and this was the fastest way. "I have seen worse."

"If you say so…" Kepler said while pressing one final button in the keyboard. "Here comes the hard part."

Black felt how the metal around his arm tightened, adding pressure to the grip. "It wasn't so bad…" the Captain said, but as soon as he relaxed he felt how the pressure augmented even more, and something nailed in his flesh. The pain came in the same way a tank would do over a small village, overriding everything else. "WHOA NELLIE!" Black shouted over the pain.

"I told you it was going to hurt…" Kepler said again.

* * *

Augustus Black wasn't a man that considered his own body as an unstoppable fighting machine. No, that was Jackie and Jade's thing. Hell, even Tohru and Uncle, who used spells to fight, seemed incredibly more oriented to physical fight than him. He had been trained in hand to hand combat, but he had made a name in the field more with the help of guns and by being a good strategist and commander. With the passing of the years and as soon as he started ascending I rank, the promotions started to come less because of how many enemies he put down in missions and more because he was able to direct them successfully, because he was able to take the more men back to home. Come his promotion to Captain… and he ended from directing a team in the field to directing the small group of individuals that directed their own teams in the field. Then came along Section 13, espionage, the Dark Hand, Jackie, bureaucrats, talismans, bureaucrats again, demons, psychological evaluations, more bureaucrats… and so on. One of the reasons he was so damn grateful of Joseph's appearance and put in charge as Director was because the fat, one-armed man had taken the whole bureaucracy over his own shoulders. That had left Black with time to focus into the organization of the teams, the agents, the people… and to think about how much he missed that action. An how much he sucked at it now, too.

He clenched his new robotic arm, feeling its weight and strength. He moved it then. Up and down, right and left. How many years had he spent outside the field? He clenched his fist again, trying to actually feel his new fingers. The technology did a very good job of replicating the feeling of pressure and strength, but there wasn't any warm there, neither was cold. And that was because his arm, his _real_ arm was gone; gone in a fight with a monster. Four years. Four years without any monster showing his ugly fangs, without weird Macguffins showing up threatening the world. Black clenched his new fist one third time and moved it up and down in circles, making his shoulder to accustom to the new prosthetic. He should have seen this coming, especially after all these years. Had he become a liability? Now that Joseph took care of the bureaucrats and the rest of the paperwork, now that he had time to really go back to his roots and reconnect with the agents… he didn't know how to exactly proceed. Of course he was still a capable commander, of course the rest of the operatives would follow him to hell… but it wasn't the same. Well, time to adjust himself to the action one more time.

He was standing in one of the training rooms of the underground base, one of the newest ones, built after the attack of the Ice Gang four years ago; his body clad in nothing but a pair of training pants and sleeveless old shirt. In front of him laid a table with several objects in it. The room was bulletproof, resistant to tremors… yes, this would do. He extended his left arm and breathed deeply. "Kepler, I'm ready;" said the Captain.

"Okay Captain, we'll try to not forcer you in the first try;" Kepler's voice came from a pair of speakers hanging from the walls. "Let's start with something simple… approach the table and take the spoon over it," Black did as told, taking the small, metallic spoon from its spot in the table, where it waited with other spoons, a brick, and a large thick block of metal. "Very well," Kepler's voice continued to sound. "Now try to wield it as if you were eating a pudding…" Black mimicked the motion his left hand did when eating, albeit he used his right one to do so. After several swings with the spoon, however, he heard a soft cracking sound, and found the spoon falling to the floor in two pieces shortly after. Black frowned upon seeing that.

"It's alright Captain, don't get frustrated;" Kepler's voice came again from the speakers. "Just relax; we knew this was going to be hard, especially when using small and fragile objects. Let's try the brick."

Black took the brick next; it weighted nothing in his robotic arm. He threw it slightly to the air a couple of times, taking it again before it hit the floor. "Well, at least we know that the connection between the interface and the nervous system works well," Kepler commented. "Your reflexes seem as good as ever… Try crushing the thing."

Black took the brick in his palm, and he thought about crushing it as strongly as he could. The robotic hand closed over the brick, which became small rock in the moment the fingers started to exert pressure over it. _Christ_ … Black thought. _Good grief I never give handshakes with the left_.

"Excellent, Captain;" Kepler's voice came again. "Now, to test weightlifting, take the iron chunk. You can crush it if you want to."

Black took the chunk of iron next and last, raising it from the table. This one weighted, and when Black tried to crush it in the same vein he had crushed the brick, the iron just distorted under the pressure, but it didn't broke. "What is this, Kepler?" Black asked.

"An iron chunk make by using super-dense alloys. It should weight approximately one hundred and fifty pounds…" Kepler explained. "If you're able to lift it like that, you should be able to lift at least double that weight by making some effort."

"You made me able to lift 300 pounds with one hand?!" Black exclaimed, quite surprised by his new prosthetic's abilities. "How?"

"Too complicated to explain," Kepler's voice came again. "Now, extend the arm forward, clench your fist and say 'Michelle'."

"Michelle? Who the hell are you talking-?" Black started to ask, but was interrupted by the fact that, upon saying the word 'Michelle' his forearm opened, reveling a small missile launcher in it, charged and ready to fire. And it was firing. Great.

The small projectile flew in the air, passing over the table and colliding with the one of the walls of the room, exploding and sending table, spoons and Captain to the floor. Black contemplated speechless the scorched area around the point the little missile had impacted. "Kepler, what in the name of God was that?!"

"That was 'Michelle', Captain. Little projectile in order to make controlled explosions, strong enough to take down a door of reinforced steel. Just one shot, sadly, so when you exit get to me so I can give you a recharge;" Kepler explained. "It's named after my ex-wife; by the way."

 _You have some issues, Kepler_ ; Black thought. _Anyway, the arm seems to make the job it was designed for quite well_. "Good job Kepler," Black told the scientist. "You have… surpassed yourself with this one."

"Of course Captain," Kepler's voice came from the speakers one last time. "My competence in science and the field of robotics is the best in the world, after all."

* * *

 ** _Director White's office; hours later_**

"Are you sure you should be getting back here so soon, Augustus?" Joseph White asked to Black as the Captain had gone to his office in order to inform him of his return. Black had found the fat Director in the same spot as always, behind his desk and scrolling over a bunch of papers, apparently organizing the transferring of the Demon Spirit Container to the Pacific Compound. "It hasn't passed even a week since you got out of the hospital."

"I'm in a perfect condition Joseph; you don't have to worry;" Black told the one-armed man. "And the new arm Kepler has given me works pretty good. I would like to put it to use, the sooner the better."

"Well, you could find Jackie, give him an unbreakable shield and have an epic fight with him;" White joked. "And you should say something like 'Who is Captain Black?', and then it would be revealed that I was a Nazi… which it's kind of weird, since my grandfather was Jewish."

"Very funny Joseph," Black said after chuckling slightly. "But I never was a big fan of Captain America."

"Really?" the Director asked in a mocked sad tone. "But it's Captain America, the symbol of democracy and freedom!"

"I'm more of a Superman fan," Black answered, earning a surprised expression from the Director.

" _You_ are a Superman fan?" White asked, slightly stunned. "It feels weird for you to say that."

"If you are going to make the joke that I look like Lex Luthor, you are too late, my friend;" Black told White with a nostalgic smile as he ran a hand over his bald head. " _Years_ too late."

"Alright, I won't do it," White answered, smirking as he did it. "But returning to a serious conversation, I suppose it's a good thing having you back so soon, Captain. The fort has been quite tranquil in your absence."

"Really?" Black asked. "No demons, no crazy wizards or something like that?"

"No," White blatantly admitted. "In the moment Jackie is gone then everything is peace and quiet. You know, I'm starting to think he is like a magnetic force for magic, don't you think?"

"Maybe," Black answered. "If Uncle was here he would point out that magical forces draw to one another, or something like that. Are we moving the Container to the Compound already?"

"Yes," White answered. "I know we still are four demons short, but the others want the three we have there already. Especially Nui Lin, that angry woman. I don't even know why, it's not like we are going to let them free or something."

Black shrugged. "I think it's a case of basic strategy. Don't let your enemy with access to a weapon you don't have."

"So Demon Sorcerers are the new Atomic Bomb, eh?" White said as a joke, albeit Black knew that it was a sentence too close to reality to be a real one.

"I think magic it's the new Atomic Bomb, Joseph;" Black sentenced, and then turned around in order to leave the Director to his own business. "By the way, do you know something about Jackie?"

"Last I heard from my mother they had just departed to Arkham from Dunwich," White explained. "That was two days ago, I don't know if they are still there. I think they were going to Innsmouth after that, but then again; I don't really know."

"All good then," Black answered. "I feel rather weird without them around, especially with all these demons running amok around and trying to…"

Before Black could finish the sentence, a booming sound rang through the whole base of Section 13, alerting all agents and members of the staff, and in mere seconds all of them were in movement towards the central room of the base, where a giant screen had started to play images of an ongoing attack and the people in charge of it had started to gather data. Meanwhile, Black and White seemed a bit surprised over hearing the sound.

"Is that the alarm?" Black asked.

"Certainly;" White answered. "Maybe Jackie's presence is not needed after all."

* * *

 ** _Section 13's central room_**

"Report," Black asked of Gutierrez once he and the Director had arrived in the central room, agents in the move and teams organizing in order to depart once the order was given. The agent had healed completely from the wounds he had attained during their mission to Mexico, but Black knew that the agent had become considerably colder towards his companions after that incident; especially towards the young, new agents. Black wanted for him to attend therapy with Joseph, but if the agent didn't want to, then there was no way to force him to do so.

"Attack and robbery in a bank near San Francisco," the agent answered. "Incredibly violent perpetrators with a lot of fire power it seems, and hostages have been taken."

"Why is the alarm ringing then?" White stepped in. "It may be violent, but Section 12 is the one that handles all the non-magical threats now."

"That's the thing, sir;" Gutierrez told the Director. "We have been reported that the attackers are only three, and that one of them _melted_ the gate to the bank's vault with his… erh… _blood_ , sir."

Both White and Black exchanged equally stunned and worried expression. The grey-skinned man pointed to the enormous skin with his only arm. "Can we please get a visual?!"

"Hacking the cameras right now, Director White;" Stephanie answered from a seat in front of the enormous keyboard that was under the screen, where she and other three agents were typing like madmen. After a couple of minutes, the screen divided itself into various sections, and they had full access to the cameras of the bank, and everything the devices were watching and recording.

The cameras showed no other than the three members of the Ice Gang, making good use of their new abilities in order to take all the money they could from the vault. An outside camera showed how the local police force had already surrounded the place, with SWAT teams being displayed around, yet not entering. The reason for that had to be the fact that one of the inside cameras showed DJ Fist guarding a group composed by around fifteen innocent bystanders and workers of the bank, and any time they tried to move, the big silent man twisted one of his arms into an unnatural way, creating a miniature tornado with it and striking the floor in front of the group, which scarily resumed its hostage situation. The other cameras showed both Strikemaster Ice opening safe boxes with his new bone blades, cutting the metal as if it was paper, and MC Cobra melting walls and bars with his new super-heated blood in order to access the money inside.

"Aren't those the trio of idiots that was on Drago's service and that destroyed the previous base?" some agent asked. "What the hell is wrong with their bodies?!"

"I don't know, but this must be the reason why we have been alerted;" Captain Black admitted. "It seems that they have got their hands in some magic," Black sighed and clenched his robotic fist again. It was time to put not only his new arm, but the new Section 13 to good use. "Prepare three teams, and make sure that the neither the SWAT nor the police try something until our arrival. Gather all the new guns and equipment. I want everyone in the streets in five! GO!"

The agents and teams started to run all around, Captain Black going with the principal one himself; and meanwhile Joseph White approached Stephanie and the rest agents in the computers.

"Maintain Augustus and the others connected to those cameras at any cost, I don't want any of them to enter there in blind, understood?" White told Stephanie.

"Roger, Director;" Stephanie said. _If I could break through the first defense program of your computer, I can do anything_ ; she thought, remembering how she had started to hack the Director's archives, only to found that it was considerably more difficult that she had thought. _But why so much secrecy?_ The servers of the Director seemed completely isolated from the rest of Section 13's system. Why? She needed to give a look at it when everything else was settled.

Meanwhile, Joseph was still looking at the screen. _That looks a lot like Mi-Go handiwork_ , the Director thought. _But how did those idiots get their hands…?_ The Director's train of thoughts came to a sudden halt when he remembered the information about the encounter his organization had with a Shoggoth the day Black has lost his arm. _Valmont… I should have removed that character out of the play long ago! I need to make a call…_

Joseph White turned around and left the room, practically running out of it, his girth moving almost comically. No one seemed to mind, the Director was a busy man after all. No one did except for Stephanie, who turned her head around to look in the Director's direction; a strange feeling taking hold over her gut. Something was starting to feel suspicious…

* * *

Captain Black moved his shoulder once again (now completely covered thanks to his jacket and a glove) while sitting in one of the three vehicles that had been sent to take care of the Ice Gang, each one carrying a team of agents. Around him, Gutierrez and the rest of the team that had been assembled concentrated and auto-motivated themselves for the coming clash. None of them had been in the battle in the subway, but the Captain knew they had heard the stories and rumors from both the survivors and the other agents. Hell, even some programs in TV were theorizing about what had happened, all the attendants yelling strange explanations at each other, most of them including the word 'magic' in them. Of course, they were nothing serious, and Black knew that very few people would take them into consideration… except for the ones that knew that Magic was, well, real. And the majority of those people in San Francisco were his agents, and that meant that each one was forming their own opinion about the source of these incidents… and their own idea of how gruesome they could be. Black sighed.

"You alright, sir?" Gutierrez asked the bald commander, who gave him an affirmative nod after a few seconds.

"Don't worry, Gutierrez;" Black answered. "It's weird to accustom yourself to a new arm, that's all."

Gutierrez closed his eyes and nodded slowly. Not taking into consideration the ones that had died in the operation in the subway, Black had turned out to be the most wounded one. The others had broken bones at worst, and those were healed with enough time. Of course, there some with PTSD but the Director and the rest of the Psychological branch could take care of that, it was their job after all. But the Captain had lost his arm, and now here he was again, with a robotic prosthetic in the place of his former one and ready to fight. Te agent didn't know if that was good or bad.

"We're arriving at the scene," the driver said from his seat at the head of the vehicle, and the car stopped shortly afterwards. The backdoor opened then, and Black descended from the vehicle, the agents of the Alfa team doing the same after him. Beta and Gamma exited their ones too, and in seconds thirty agents of Section 13 were scattered around the street the bank under attack was in, ready to take action.

The first thing Black did was to head directly towards the man who seemed in charge of everything going on around there. In the moment he showed the old and slightly bearded police officer his badge and that he had a higher authority, the good men of San Francisco's Police Department gave him and Section 13 full control of the situation. Of course, Black maintained them there, the more help the better. He also asked for a report of how the whole situation had developed until now.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," the man answered. "Which is actually quite weird, considering what those freaks can do. They've asked for a negotiator to enter and bargain with them the terms of the hostages' release, and nothing else. They spoke really weird, though."

"Alright," Captain Black said before turning to Gutierrez. "I want you to take Beta and mix with the SWAT that had been displayed around. Take high positions over the roofs of the nearby buildings and be ready to put something in there that blinds those idiots."

"Tear gas?" Gutierrez inquired but Black shook his head in disagreement. Right, there were civilians inside. "Flashing grenades then."

"Gamma, remain here and secure the area," Black instructed the third time. "Alfa, in the moment I made the signal and Beta flashes those dumbasses; I want you to enter and take every one of those hostages out. Then I want you to take those three out with everything you got. That trio may be made out of idiots, but they aren't the kindhearted type. If they haven't gone already by creating an escape route, then they won't attend to reason."

"We aren't taking prisoners?" one of the agents asked, but Black held his hand /the one still made out of flesh) up.

"Yes, but I bet those three can take much more than just a rain of bullets," Black explained. "Wait for my signal and proceed as ordered."

"Which signal, Captain?" Gutierrez asked as he started to organize Beta.

"The big 'boom';" Black answered as he headed towards the door of the bank, making a sign to one of the policemen to pick a megaphone and yell that they were sending the negotiator, alone.

Black crossed the gates of the bank, entering in the building, hands up in complete submission. At first he didn't heard a thing, except for the noise coming from the small headphone in his right ear, maintaining him in touch with the rest of his forces outside. He didn't have to walk too much in order to find the hostages, all of them sat down in a circle with terrified expressions in their faces, which only lighted slightly with hope upon seeing them. The silence continued to be dominant until the sound of arrogant and annoying laughter filled it, actually making Black to want the silence back. Following the laughter Black headed slowly to the vault, where he was presented with one o the strangest sights he had witnessed in his life. The freaky living slime of the subway? Number one. Shendu roaring like crazy in the Dark Hand's skyscraper? Number two. This? This was number three… and while the other two had scared him, this one only make him feel awkward.

The Ice Gang had put the entire quantity of dollars that the bank had in storage in one, enormous pile, and were currently using what looked to be pieces of rectangular metal (probably the doors of some of the big safe-boxes they had broken) as if they were skateboards in order to literally skate over the big pile of money. He had read something about this somewhere, right? Maybe in one of Joseph's books? That there were this type of unfocused yet dangerous type of criminal that didn't give two cents about money or a real end so long as they could experience some kind of thrill. Yes, considering past experiences, that described the Ice Gang Crew quite well. They could have abandoned Drago in the first moment he gave them their new powers, or maybe opt for a better suited crime activity in order to gain money. No, Black didn't have a high opinion of them as criminals, neither as a threat to humanity. Were Valmont had been a real criminal threat, Wong a cruel old man obsessed with power and Shendu and the likes of him monsters that menaced humanity as a whole; the likes of the Ice Gang were... kids in grown ups' bodies, not having really matured and having been left in their adolescence. And for Black, that kind of people was clear 'enforcer' material. Which meant that this situation was really a result of pettiness and the search of emotion… or there was someone behind pulling the strings behind the trio. Damn, Black hated those manipulator-type ones. They could be right under your nose, sipping a cup of coffee, and you would never see them coming until it was too late.

"Hello?!" Black asked aloud to the trio, that enjoying themselves as they were, haven't noticed him entering. "I'm the negotiator you requested!"

The eyes of the trio fell upon Black and they descended in front of him with a single jump from the top of the pile of cash; Strikemaster Ice in the center, flanked by MC Cobra at his right and DJ Fist at his left. The short blond man seemed to still be the head of the group, that didn't seem to have changed. However, they felt different somehow. The way they moved, the way their bodies sounded upon cracking their joints… the strength and agility they seemed to have was too much, even for skilled fighters like them. And then there was the things he had seen them doing in the cameras. Yes, definitely something wasn't right in there; be it magic or not.

"Yo, yo, yo; I knew they were going to send someone, but good old Capt Black?" Ice asked with a smug grin. "A pile of cash, some fun and the Big Boss of the 13! The gang's in their lucky day!"

"Cut it out, Ice;" Black told the short blond man. "You wanted a negotiator, here I am."

"Oh man! We should've asked for him to bring some sodas!" MC Cobra cut in, rubbing his throat. "I'm dying for one of those right now!"

Black fought with all his will against his urge of rolling his eyes and letting out a sight of exasperation. In his eardrum, the headphone had started to sound again, Gutierrez informing him about the teams taking their positions. Good, everyone was in their place, and that meant that he had to give the signal if he wanted the show to start. But first, Black wanted some information, and to obtain it, he had to play the part.

"Are you going to make demands or not?" Black asked, letting a bit of his exasperation to slip into his voice.

"Yeah! Just give us a second!" Ice said, making signs to his two companions to come near him, forming a somewhat small circle in order to speak in private.

"Dudes, what do we ask?" Strikemaster Ice asked his two friends and teammates. DJ Fist just gave a quick shrug with his shoulders, showing that he was as confused as their leader, while MC Cobra grinned after thinking a little.

"What about a truck?" the thin member of the gang asked. "Or maybe a helicopter, I always wanted one!"

"That's cool, man;" Ice said, acknowledging his teammate's idea. "What do you think, Fist?" he asked the big, silent man, who raised his thumb in approval.

"Yo, Black, we ain't going anywhere without a helicopter;" Ice informed the Captain, who had kept looking at them during their whole conversation. Seriously, did they really think that he couldn't hear them when they were speaking?

 _They haven't even bothered to see if I'm armed, or if I have a microphone. Either overconfidence or this is probably one of the most blatant diversions of my career. And a helicopter, really?_ ; Black thought, unable to restrain himself anymore. "You want a helicopter. In one of the most populated streets of San Francisco. In the middle of the day."

"Yeah!" was the only response of both Ice and Cobra, while Fist crossed his arms and nodded while smiling.

"Is… This the first time you all try doing this, right?" Black demanded to know. "Robbing a bank, I mean."

"What?! We've been robbing since we got out our teens, Black!" Ice answered, quite offended.

"Well, this is our first try in robbing a bank, Ice;" MC Cobra admitted.

 _And I seriously doubt that none of you ever got out of their teens_ ; Black thought. _Well, I suppose I won't get anything out of them_. "You want a helicopter? Then talk to my secretary;" Black told the Ice Gang extending his new arm towards them. "Michele!"

"Uh, Michelle…" MC Cobra said. "I like that, it sounds sexy…"

Ice shot a quick glare towards his companion in order to tell him to shut up. However, his eyes focused solely in Black when his forearm opened, reveling the small missile that Kepler had installed in it. The three men's expressions changed from ones of smug fun to ones of cold fury, years of training in a remote temple in the mountains kicking in and yelling at them to dodge that. Which they proceeded to do instantly, jumping to their sides, Ice and Cobra to their right and Fist to his left, the projectile clashing and exploding shortly afterwards. The explosion raised a ton of smoke, but it was quickly dissipated by Fist's tornadoes.

"Do you really think that was going to take us out?" Ice declared while he and his companions approached Black. "No one takes the main men out!"

 _I want this day to end so much_ ; Black thought with disdain. "Gutierrez, now!" he yelled, and in mere seconds Beta fired the flashing grenades into the bank, the devices entering the building by crashing some of its windows and blinding the Ice Gang and the hostages once they activated, but not Black, who had closed his eyes knowing what was to come. "Alfa, take everyone outside, make Gamma to bring them to safety!"

The Ice Gang was tumbling a bit after the flash, but they recovered quite quickly. However, as they did so, they found half of team Alfa carrying the hostages out, and the other half standing right alongside Captain Black, lined up and pointing their guns towards them. Black stood in the middle of the formation, hands crossed at his back, stern and cold look in his eyes.

"Fire!"

"Ah, shit!" Ice shouted before he and the other two were hit by a storm of bullets. The agents stopped after their guns had ran out of ammo, but then a miniature tornado struck them, sending the bunch to the ground.

The Ice Gang rose to their feet, bullets falling from their bodies and hitting the ground. The holes they had left in their skin and muscles were healing, albeit they did in a much slower manner that Valmont's. After all, not everyone could take control over a Shoggoth from night to day like Valmont did. However, they looked immensely enraged now, their smug grins and playful antics gone, instead being replaced by expression that could befit a rabid dog more than a person.

"You think…" Ice said, panting slightly. "You think that… that you can make fun of me? You think you can laugh at us?! No Black, not anymore! Not after this day! No more Mr. Nice Strikemaster Ice for you!" the short blonde's forearms opened, revealing his brilliant bone blades. "GIVE 'EM THE BEATING OF THEIR LIVES!"

Cobra and Fist obeyed and dashed towards the agents, who hadn't been able to recharge their guns until that moment. They hit them, and hit them hard. Punches, kick, all their repertory in martial arts was displayed there. Just then, when they were sure that the agents didn't have any advantage again, they started to add their new abilities to the fight; tornadoes and hyper-heated blood flying around and striking the agents of team Alfa down. Just in the moment MC seemed to actually be in the verge of nailing his new set of blood vessels into someone in order to melt them inside out, Black's new robotic hand gripped his, exerting so much pressure that the hand of the thin member of the gang became something akin to a dried and wasted piece of flesh. Black threw him across the room them, as if the man was a simple ragdoll. The Captain found himself actually enjoying his new arm's abilities, smirking slightly as he clenched his new fist.

In that moment, the hostages long gone not only from the bank but also from the scene, Gutierrez come crashing down with the Beta team, entering the bank from its superior windows. What followed was utter and simple chaos. Laser beams of pure white color joined the tornadoes and magma-like blood; and bullets flew all around, sometimes striking the Ice Gang and some other times not. Black had to admit that he had become quite slower in opposition to his days as a younger agent. Even if his new arm was a practically unstoppable robotic prosthetic, the rest of his body wasn't and that meant that he couldn't keep avoiding the attacks of the trio forever. He forced himself to withdraw to the ending lines of his agents formation, where the injured members of Lfa had been taken to. He spotted Gutierrez there, loading a gun into Ice's direction, the short blonde actually not paying mind to him, cutting the bullets with his blades in the same manner a person gets rid of a fly. The situation wasn't improving, they were losing agents quite quickly, and albeit at least they weren't dying they were going to spend quite the time in the hospital. The Ice Gang, in the other hand, seemed to be taking their blows quite well, slowing but not stopping as their wounds product of the bullets regenerated.

 _It's as if we were fighting three Wolverines_ ; Black complained in his thoughts. "Gamma! Come here immediately and tell the Police and the AWAT to bring reinforcements!"

"Captain… Black…!" the voice of a member of Gamma came in, and it sounded blurred. "Sir… the… we can't… there's a third… Oh God, he's humiliating us!"

"What?" Black asked, surprised to the extreme, but then the communication ended. "Gamma! Gamma, come in!" but there wasn't any response. Instead, both the front doors of the bank exploded then, flying out of their frames. Black and Gutierrez looked to the entrance, and for a moment time seemed to stop, as did both agents and the Ice Gang. From the hole that had resulted of the bursting of the doors, Black heard steps. Steps that were coming closer and closer.

Then he saw a black talon entering the bank, then another. A tall, humanoid and muscular being clad in leathery black… _something;_ something that looked like armor, but that was probably the being's skin. A cape at his back that resembled the wings of a bat, a helmet that emulated a predatory bird's peak and a pair of human eyes, with a human mouth adorned in lipstick under it. The being titled his head at Black, smiling devilishly.

"Hello everyone;" the Sky Devil greeted them. "Room for one more?"

* * *

 ** _Director White's office_**

"I suppose that takes care of this problem," Director White said as he saw how the form of the being that had resulting of the fusion of Paco and Hsi Wu entered the scene in the bank in his computer's screen. He had returned to his office as soon as he had figured out that Valmont was somehow involved in all this, knowing that the former crime boss was probably using the Ice Gang as mere bait. The question was where. Where was Valmont? He needed someone to take care of those three as fast as possible, and considering Black's history with this kind of situations, the Captain couldn't succeed. So, a quick call to Mexico, and White had his newest and more formidable associate flying at mach speed to San Francisco, landing like a meteor and striking the agents of team Gamma down. White felt somehow bad for having unleashed that flying nightmare over the agents but he needed this to be dealt with. He wondered if the Sky Devil had finally picked a name...

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his telephone ringing. Picking it up, White answered the call. "Yes? Oh, hello aunt Asenath! Yes, I know about... Grandfather did what?! No... No, alright. The woman was going to betray me sooner or later, it's irrelevant. Did something happen to the family? To Jade?! Nothing? Good, good... just, thank you for telling me this, aunt. I spoke with mom a while ago and she told me that... uhm? Oh, mom's well. Yes... yes... love you too, aunt Asenath."

White sighed in tiredness and reclined in his seat, looking at the ceiling of his office. _Good thing that when the Chans get the Necronomicon from Innsmouth I can finally get out of this damned bureaucratic job_ ; White thought. _I swear, being the leader of one of those cults that remained in Japan about the Crawling Chaos has to be more relaxing than this thing. But I'm so close, what is a couple of days or a simple week more?_ White's eyes focused in the painting that adorned the ceiling, the one that Jackie had once mistaken by the symbol of the Kabala. The Director extended his only arm towards the painting, as if wanting to touch it. The spheres of light that were depicted shined that day radiantly, and in their glow it seemed that you could read words in a strange language; the history, the memory of the whole creation.

"What is time for me that I'm the son of Time itself, eh Father?"

* * *

 ** _The Bank_**

Augustus Black knew were something was starting to go out of control. That had been one of the reasons behind his promotion to Captain of Section 13; that and that he knew how to make things out of control to be controlled again. Years ago, when the Dark hand business was starting to get out of their hands, he had enlisted Jackie's help… and that turned out into a continuous spiral of losing control and regaining it. Now, he felt exactly the same sensation, just amped up to the extreme. The tall, muscular being clad in black leathery skin that seemed to have appeared right out of the imagination of Clive Baker stood there, smiling as if this was just a meeting between friends in order to play basketball with the old gang in the neighborhood.

"Well?" the Sky Devil asked, walking a few steps towards his left. "Cat got your tongue? You all were in the middle of a fight just seconds ago, I came in and you just stop?" he raised one hand as if he was a student in class, asking for permission to speak. "Okay, I would like to complain about the current situation our enforcers of the law are currently in," the birdlike humanoid being looked at Black then, his eyes brightening in cruelty. "Where do you think I should put my complain? In a box? Maybe you want an e-mail?" the Sky Devil extended his claws, lighting them in dark chi. "Or should I carve it into your skulls?"

Black didn't move a finger, neither of flesh nor of metal. At his side, Gutierrez clenched his gun and so did the rest of the agents. Too many possibilities were now dancing in the Captain's head, too many variables, too many questions. Who was this one? What was he? Which were his intentions, was he friend of foe?

 _Foe, he's an enemy. He has left that clear; Black thought. Working with those three?_ ; Black glanced back to the Ice Gang, who seemed as surprised as him. Probably not. Shit.

"Yo, what's up with the guy in the S&M costume?" MC Cobra asked Ice, who just shrugged.

"Dunno," the short blonde answered. "You think that the boss sent him?"

"They know we can hear them, right?" the Sky Devil asked to the still paralyzed Captain Black, who just kept staring at him.

"Who are you?" Black asked of the bird-like humanoid.

"Can't you guess?" the man (yes, that was a good way to referring to him) asked. "I think it's pretty obvious considering what you have been dealing with as of lately."

Black narrowed his eyes, focusing in the man's appearance, his antics, and speech. "The Sky Demon?" Black asked, trying to remember the creature's name. "Hsi Wu?"

"Just in half," the man answered. "Which means that it's not the case anymore. It's Sky _Devil_ now by the way, and if I had to pick a name..." the Sky Devil extended his left claw and let the dark chi to form a pair of symbols in Chinese, 天魔. "I think I would pick _Māra_ ; so call me that."

"What's the difference between a Demon and a Devil?" Gutierrez asked as his grip around his gun tightened. _And what the hell does that name mean?_ The birdlike humanoid just laughed at that question.

"A Demon's a Demon; a being of negativity outside of humanity;" the birdlike being explained. "A Devil is a Demon… fused with a negative human. But after all, those who make deals with Demons should be prepared to become Demons themselves."

 _This is one of those humans that had completed a deal with a demon Uncle spoke about?_ ; Black though, remembering the images Section 13 had taken from that baseball stadium's cameras and what Jackie had told him about Hsi Wu; noting how incredibly different the scrawny, bat-like Demon Sorcerer looked in comparison with the elegant, muscular and calm individual in front of him. _I hope this isn't one of those cases the beauty in the outside the monster equals its power, because if that's the case…_

"Captain…" Gutierrez said in a whisper, his eyes fluctuating between the self-proclaimed _Māra_ and the Ice Gang. Black knew what he meant with that stare. This could turn into a total mess for the team…

"Do you still have some of those flashing grenades?" Black whispered, and Gutierrez gave a nod. "Take us out, now."

"Icarus!" Gutierrez yelled, taking a pair of the grenades he had always hidden at is back and throwing them into the air, where they activated and produced the blinding light once again. Icarus; yes, that was this tactic's name. It was simple yet effective. Someone yelled Icarus and throw two flashing grenades into the air, giving enough time for the teammates to cover their eyes, or simply sip the visor of their helmets down. Then the grenades exploded, producing a light over their heads. Like in the tale of the son of Daedalus, the light over their heads, a parallel to the sun, was supposed to play in the disadvantage of the opponents blinding them for enough time for the agents to scatter and regroup in another place in order to think a new strategy.

However, as soon as Black and his men had started running, a black claw grabbed his right arm and tossed him backwards, preventing his escape. As the light of the grenades cleared and died out, Black was presented with the sight of _Māra,_ standing in front of him and folding his arms over his chest.

"No Captain;" the Sky Devil said. "You aren't going anywhere."

"Sir!" Gutierrez yelled from the gate, but Black gestured towards him in order to go.

"Take everyone out of the zone!" the Captain yelled. "Now! Go!" Black ordered without hesitation, and Gutierrez obeyed, letting Black behind to handle the Sky Devil by himself. Behind him, groaning, the three components of the Ice Gang recuperated from the blinding flash and bounced back to the fight, readying their new biological weapons in order to fight _whoever_ was in their way. However, as soon as the place seemed cleared enough, the Sky Devil started to concentrate Dark chi in his claws and then clapped them strongly, generating a strong energy wave that shocked everyone in the bank, sending both Black and the Ice gang flying and colliding with the

"Yo, Batman rip-off!" Ice shouted towards the Sky Devil. "What the hell, man? You're supposed to be in our side, dude!"

"Why?" _Māra_ asked while sporting a playful grin. "Just because I have taken all those agents down and decided to have Captain Black here to party with us, doesn't mean that I'm on your side. I don't have a side. I'm just doing this as part of a temporal agreement with someone; you could consider this as a part-time job."

"You mean the Boss didn't send you here?" MC Cobra asked of the birdlike humanoid, who just laughed again.

"You three aren't the brightest light bulbs in the room, are you?" _Māra_ asked mockingly, enraging the trio of men. "And speaking of the Boss, my own, temporal boss sent me here especially to get rid of you and the man pulling the strings on you."

"Ya' done goofed then," Ice declared, visibly annoyed at the fact that he had been mocked by the man. "Take him out, boys!"

MC Cobra and DJ Fist rushed towards the Sky Devil, tornadoes and heated blood ready to strike, but when the big bulky man tried to strike him with the power of his new Wind Mode, the hybrid just stopped him in midair with one claw, sending him to the ground after that and then stomping on him with one of his talons, the claws of its bestial foot nailing in the goon's body. _Māra_ proceeded then to blast Mc Cobra with a shot of powerful Dark chi, sending the slim and now literally hotheaded man flying in the opposite direction he had jumped in, crashing with a wall of the bank, breaking it and landing in the streets of San Francisco.

"Too easy," the demon-human hybrid commented. "I haven't have the opportunity to test the extremes I can push this new me to, and you surely aren't being of any help…" Fist charged a tornado from his spot in the ground, shooting it at point blank range towards the Sky Devil, but the attack just disintegrated in the moment it collided with _Māra_. "Really?" the Sky Devil charged his talon with Dark chi, and then proceeded to stomp into Fist with it, repeatedly and so strongly that the member of the Ice Gang started to sink in the ground out of the pressure. "It's useless! Useless! Useless! Useless! Useless! Useless! Useless! Useless! Useless!"

The seemingly endless rain of blows that was the attack of the Sky Devil ended with a crater in the floor of the bank that seemed the product of a meteor, and an unconscious Fist in it; the regeneration unable to cope with the damage. The Sky Devil took him by the neck and tossed the big man towards Ice, who ended being the only remaining member of the gang in his feet. However, he had started to charge his bone blades with light in the moment he saw his two companions overpowered.

"You think your little blasts can do anything to me?" _Māra_ demanded to know.

"Nope," Ice clarified. "But they'll surely be better than those flashy bombs of the baldie;" Ice declared, shooting a pair of powerful laser beams not in the hybrid's direction, but upwards, where they produced a blinding light enormously more intense than the one that the gents had produced with the flashing grenades, blinding the Sky Devil, this time successfully. Ice took the opportunity to grab Fist and escape from the hole MC Cobra had opened by crashing it, and after reuniting with the thin man outside, who had recovered from the hit in the most appropriate of time, the Ice Gang ran out of the scene using the escape route Valmont had provided them with. Hopefully, they would have provided the British man with enough time to proceed with the real operation.

 _Māra_ approached the hole once the light died out and the smoke cleared, seeing that the trio had successfully disappearing from sight. The Sky Devil sighed and shook his head. "Well, that was anticlimactic…" the Devil said. _White is going to be angry I didn't get info on Valmont's whereabouts, but if they escaped it means that he wasn't here to begin with. Well_ … "I suppose it's just room for two now, eh captain Black? Black?"

 _Māra_ turned around and saw Black, now out of the bank with three agents in front of him, each one carrying a bazooka and pointing at him. He made an expression akin to raising an eyebrow, albeit the 'helmet' that covered his face didn't show eyebrows, if he had those. "Hijos de la gran pu-."

"FIRE!"

The three projectiles of the weapons flew out of the guns, entering the bank and producing a huge explosion. Black, Gutierrez and the rest of operatives and members of the police watched as the whole bank was enveloped in flames, completely trashed down. Burning almost destroyed dollars started to fall from the sky as if they were a slow and small rain of ashes, certainly the remnants of the pile of money the Ice Gang had assembled.

"Sir, the money of…" Gutierrez said, thinking about how many good people had their lifetime savings there.

"Don't worry; Section 13 will gave them a compensation for this," Black explained. "If there is something we don't have to worry about it's about funding. Now, I hope that has taken that monster…"

"Down?" came the voice of the Sky Devil. "Not a chance."

The black form of the demon-human hybrid emerged from within the smoke and the flames, completely unscathed, all completed with a smug grin of superiority. "Poor Captain Black, all these years and yet you haven't learned that 'Magic must defeat Magic'." _Māra_ stretched his limbs. "But I thank you for letting me know to which extremes I can take myself now. I bet that I'm even more resilient than Shendu ever was! I wonder what would happen if a nuclear warhead hit me… I'm sorry for disappointing you if you are expecting this little dance to continue, Black; but I don't have anything else to do here…" the cape at the humanoid being's back extended as if it was a pair of wings. "Which means it's time to fly out!"

There was a flip of wings, and a gust of wind blew against the agents' faces. And then the Sky Devil was gone, lost in the skies. Black let a huge breath to escape his mouth, and the directed to Gutierrez.

"Did we lose somebody?" he asked, to which the agent shook his head.

"No. Whoever that freak was, he didn't do a thing to our agents that wasn't letting them unconscious;" Gutierrez informed. "The hostages are safe, and we only have wounded."

"Good," Black said, looking around at the completely devastated bank, letting the fact that the trio of men had escaped to sink in. The presence of the demon wasn't a very optimistic fact either. "We will… we will call this a draw."

* * *

 ** _Section 13, hours later_**

"Are you sure it was Valmont?" Black asked to White. Both men were now in the latter's office again, just like hours before, but the atmosphere wasn't as friendly as before.

"It has to," White answered in a serious tone. "I have been trying to gather some information in the Ice Gang's movements after they exited prison, and the only thing I was able to find was that they enlisted into the band of some yakuza a couple of weeks ago… but the entire band has disappeared since. Some of the police's informants in the streets and the gangs around San Francisco speak about some 'green-dressed British fellow' and Section 12's…"

"Alright, Joseph, it was Valmont;" Black interrupted the Director. "But if he wanted to perpetrate a robbery in a bank, why not show up?"

"It must have been a diversion," White explained. "But if Valmont was just distracting us, then what was his real objective?"

"I don't know;" Black answered. "I also thought that it was a diversion, but then that demon, or devil, or whatever it was showed up and…" Black sighed. "Things got out of control."

"Don't worry about the demon, Augustus;" White assured the Captain. "I'll make sure to take this to the Compound, put all the countries in alert, don't worry. The matter of Valmont is more urgent, he was the problem of this organization since day one, and we need to solve it…"

In that moment, the telephone of the Director rang, and White it in seaker mode, seeing that it came from the main room. "Yes, Miss Stephanie, what is it?"

"Sir… I mean, sirs? We have jut received another alert…" the voice of the blond teenage girl came from the phone. "I think you should come here and see it."

White and Black exchanged looks once more, and following the same routine than in the morning, they headed to the main room of Section 13.

* * *

"FORT KNOX?!" White shrieked, his eyes bulging out behind his pair of glasses. "That British asshole went to Fort Knox?! How did he get to Kentucky?!" White demanded to know, just to fall in account that he also could travel a lot of distance in small times. _He must have used one of the Gates that the Mi-Go have around… damned those Fungi_!

"How much gold did he take?" Black asked of Stephanie, still at the huge computer's keyboard. Black should have seen this one from kilometers away. Valmont had been always obsessed with gold since Jackie busted his attempt to get a ton of it when the former crime lord was in possession of the Dragon talisman.

"Not a lot… but that's considering the huge amount that it's in fort Knox;" Stephanie explained. "Apparently, he appeared out of nowhere, cut the security system down, took some gold and then disappeared with a bunch of members the staff; all by himself."

 _He probably exchanged those members of the staff to the Mi-Go for transport_ ; White thought. "How did he take all that gold by himself?"

"According to witnesses, storing it inside his body;" Stephanie said.

 _Damn the Shoggoths, and those Elder Things!_ ; White thought again. _They could have created obedient slaves, but no! They had to create a new, hyper-competent, Omni-disciplinary species with an adaptable ability that would make Darwin wet his pants! They deserved those rebellions the Shoggoths took against them!_

"So the bank robbery really was a distraction;" Black admitted. He clenched his new, robotic hand again. Today had been such a bizarre day… and to think that Jackie was starting to face these kind of things in a daily basis. "Everyone has done a very good job. We saved those innocents, and that's what is important. All of you have earned a well deserved break. Get a few hours of rest, everyone. Unless there is another alarm, go home or to your rooms, and rest."

Everyone in the room obeyed Black's order with pleasure, and headed either out or to the rooms they had in the base proper. Stephanie was the only one that didn't have a relaxing afternoon in mind, because in the moment she hit her room, she started to work in decoding the Director's archives.

White, in the other hand, headed to his office once again, ready to have a chat with the Sky Devil. It wasn't that Valmont and his actions were a problem in is long term plan, but White disliked the idea of letting the British man to run free into the world, out of his control. Before entering his office, he wondered what Valmont intended to do with that gold.

* * *

 ** _The abandoned warehouse_**

"We're going where, V-boss?" Ice asked stunned after their new employer had described where they intended to go with the gold the green clothed man had taken from Fort Knox.

"I told you Ice, Russia;" Valmont explained, pointing to a map in a table that had a spot marked over a region of the huge country.

"But why?" MC Cobra asked while keeping an ice bag near his head. DJ Fist wasn't very far away, resting and letting his new regeneration abilities to heal him. We didn't get our asses wooped just to go to Russia and have them frozen."

"We are going to Russia, to that part of Russia specifically," Valmont said, and then pointed to another spot in the Pacific, near the South Pole. "Because it's far away from this place."

"What's there then, V-boss?" Ice asked, genuinely curious.

"This is the Zero Zone;" Valmont explained. "Remember when I said that the end of the world was coming in a couple of months? Well, it's going to come from there, and when the dust settles and a new world emerges, I will be a t the top. And you will be with me, if you like so."

"Whoa, so the world's gonna end?" Ice asked, now scared.

"Change," Valmont explained, calming his new associates. "The world is going to change. Fortunately, it's going to change in favor of the things we are now."

* * *

 ** _Section 13_**

In his office, White was looking into his mirror, his personal Gate. In its surface, the image of the Sky Devil, now glamoured under the guise of Paco, was looking back.

"You seem calmer than I thought you'll be;" Paco told the man.

"I don't tend to let my emotions to get the best of me," White explained. "But that doesn't mean I'm not going to blame you for the fiasco in the bank."

"What gives?" Paco asked. "According to your plan, Valmont is irrelevant."

"Irrelevant now;" White explained. "But what after the Awakening? After the Festival, or even the Advent? I don't like loose ends."

"Control freak;" Paco said in a deadpan tone, to which White frowned.

"Control freak? Let's get something clear here; slowly and nice;" White said. "I'm the son. Of a being. That incarnates. The space-time continuum of the whole multiverse! And I was bestowed the title of Organizer! Being a control freak is my job!"

"Okay, okay, jeez!" Paco said. "And I thought Tso Lan was the one obsessed with titles…"

White's computer beeped then, stopping the Director from continuing his conversation. Rolling his eyes, the grey skinned fat man walked to his desk and checjked what was that alert about. "What now…?" White asked in exasperation. Today had been full of mishaps. "What is this? Hacking? Archives being copied?! Who in the name of the Daemon Sultan's court dares to…?" White read a bit more of his screen. "Stephanie…"

"You alright?" Paco asked of the Director, who was currently walking frenetically towards the door.

"Nothing;" White answered. "A little computer virus I must take care about. Make sure that you and El Toro are back in States for…"

"Don't worry, we'll be here;" Paco said as his image started to fade. "I won't lose this family reunion for nothing in the world, especially after what you promised me."

"Fantastic…" White deadpanned, exiting his office.

* * *

"Finally!" Stephanie shouted in relief after his computer had stopped decoding the last of the archives in the Director's database. A lot of files appeared in her screen, each one with a strange name. "Let's see what you're hiding, Director."

The blonde started to check some of the files, clicking them. The majority were simply strange looking designs with strange looking runes. There was one that was especially creepy, a circular one with what looked to be Egyptian symbols, but also with Japanese kanji and some runes she didn't recognize. It was inside a file labeled 'Advent'.

"Whateley Project, Expansion of the Order of Dagon, Planning for the Building of…" Stephanie read aloud until coming to the last of the files, one labeled as 'The Herald'. Inside, she found something much more interesting than schematics or designs. It was just a single video, a single recording that was dated not even a year ago. Curious as she was, Stephanie clicked it, and as soon as she started watching and the video played, her expression changed from one of curiosity to one of utter horror.

"Oh my God…" the blond teenager muttered in disbelief. "Oh God I've to, I've to… I need to…" not being able to even finish her sentences, Stephanie sat up and searched for her mobile phone. She found it in between the trash of her room, and started to dial a number, albeit the trembling of her hands proved to be difficult for the task. "Shit, I need to…"

"Give a call to Jackie Chan?" Joseph White spoke from the frame of the door to Stephanie's room. The blonde turned around, the Director walking in slowly. "Yes, I suppose calling him is the best course of action, but of course, I won't let you do that, Steph;" White then moved fast, much faster than Stephanie thought he was capable of, hitting her with the palm of his only hand across the face and sending her to the ground, bleeding from her nostril. He then stomped in the mobile phone, breaking it. "Did you really believe that I wasn't going to discover your little trip into my archives?"

"You… that video, you… You are a monster!" Stephanie yelled, but in that moment, White kicked her in the face, rendering the girl unconscious. He then moved his hand and a set of blue runes surrounded her, putting her into stasis; basically in a controlled coma.

"I know," White declared, grinning in an inhuman way. "It comes right from my dad."

* * *

 **A/N. This chapter… I suppose it should be clear that I like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure by now. In their exact order for non-anime-fans… The 'Modes' that the Ice Gang got are exactly the same that the Pillar Men are able to use in Battle Tendency. Captain Black's arm is a shout-out to Stroheim and Joseph Joestar's prosthetics. And finally, Māra's 'Useless!' while stomping in DJ Fist, was a reference to DIO's battle cry "Mudamudamuda!", which translates as 'Useless' to English. By the way, Māra is the name of a demon that supposedly tempted Buddha and tried to corrupt him. Considering that Paco got 'corrupted' by Hsi Wu, I found it an appropriate name. Well, next chapters will be spend in Innsmouth with the Chan Clan and will be the the final steps of the Massachusetts Arc.**

 **Bye, Bye!**


	12. Depths of Innsmouth

**Disclaimer: I don't own Jackie Chan Adventures; JCA and all its characters are the property of Phil Weinstein, Frank Squillace and Jackie Chan himself.**

 **A/N: Hello gain, dear readers. As always, many thanks to all the reviewers, and people who spend their time in reading this thing; I love you all. So, it's Innsmouth next, probably the first location people think of when hearing about Lovecraft. This city is the last stop in the Massachusetts arc, and so it's going to have this chapter and the next one dedicated entirely to it, plus a bit from the one after those. Without anything else to say, let's start. As always, more notes at the chapter's end.**

* * *

Jackie Chan Adventures

Out of the Corner of the Eye

Chapter twelve

Depths of Innsmouth

* * *

 **From the journals of Marcus Malone. Twelfth entry. November of 1967**

Grandfather. I'm a grandfather now; been one for months. Just like I became a father for Wilma in the blink of an eye so has she become a mother to little Joseph and Jonathan too. Seventeen, my little daughter is just... but she is the consort of the Lurker at the Threshold. Her sons are Princes... Lavinia seems a bit taken aback too. Wilma, our daughter... she doesn't feel like being the same she was.

As for the Project... I suppose it has already reached its final stage. My grandsons are the proof of that, and I suppose what Lord Nyarlathotep intends to do with Jie and his family... Is this what our dear Wizard Whateley tried to accomplish? Is this what I wanted? I don't really know...

I'm sorry for not being able to properly explain, I had a terrible dream tonight, and it has been bugging me in the head since. You see, in my dream I was suddenly back into my old home, when I was just a child. I was in my family's dining room, and there was a large table where the Defiler, a Mi-Go and a Deep One were sat. Presiding the table was no other than my friend, Robert Black. He told me to sit down and eat... and we were eating nothing but my old friends, my former companions when I was just a simple journalist. And I ate their flesh, and drank their blood. We had their brains for supper. Then the strangest thing happened; I blinked... and my friend Robert Black shifted into the albino that I met back in Germany. I blinked, and he was a Japanese man I only know from books, Oda Nobunaga, I believe. I blinked one last time... and Robert became an individual that towered over the rest of the attendants. He was dressed in a large, dark robe that covered his whole, large body. Long arms, as long as himself in fact, reached to one spot and another of the table, grabbing food. He was skeletal, only skin and bones, and only four fingers in his hands. The skin was black... and I mean black as oil. And the face... there was... only a mouth there, only a mouth full of three lines of sharp teeth made of pure gold. He smiled at me, and then laughed. I laughed too. I understand now, what Robert means. What _He_ means.

We are nothing but a joke, aren't we? Good, evil, morality… they are nothing but part of the same joke we are. But I want to be here! I need to be here, for my family! I don't want to be a joke! There has to be a way… some way to remain living…

* * *

 ** _Deep into the ocean…_**

Innsmouth had always been a town of fishermen. In fact, the first thing that had barely resembled any form of civilization had been nothing but a small settlement of fishermen, living in small and bad built cabins made out of good and junk. Those fishermen didn't neither want nor need more; living there, living from the goods that the sea gave them, that was enough for them.

It wasn't until the year of 1643 that the place started to become something that could be called town. During the following century, the town grew exponentially, always dedicated to fishing; until 1812, when the winds of war made the trades the town had with the South Seas to falter. It wasn't until sixteen years later that, in 1828; the founder and patriarch of the Marsh family, Obed; made contact in the Polynesia with a certain civilization. He made a contract with them, and brought them, guided them, into Innsmouth's shores. In 1840, the Esoteric Order of Dagon was founded in the town; and Innsmouth experienced a great upsurge. Since then, the town and the civilization remained in contract, and with the passing of time, and especially after the arrival of the Whateley Project; the town and the civilization blended with each other... until a point in which Innsmouth belonged to that civilization more than it belonged to the United States of America, or the planet Earth, for that matter.

And so Innsmouth remained, with the civilization deep beneath the sea that married its coasts. Tranquil, peaceful, waiting... Waiting... Deep below...

Until they heard the sound of wheels, coming towards the town, towards their shores, towards their home. They stirred, deep below, under the waves. Moving, whispering, asking and theorizing. Gathering in the hall, where the coming wedding was still under preparations for the new moon. Roaring; with webbed hands and strong fins; scaled bodies tall and small and of every color imaginable. The citizens of the citadel, the Guardians of the Sea…

"Father! Mother!" echoed their voices. "Who has come?! Who are the outsiders?! Are they friend, or foe?!"

In the end of the large hall, so large it was that it resembled a city's boulevard, was a pond of dark water. Inside it two forms were swimming, and albeit how exactly they looked couldn't be seen, it was clear that they were far larger than the rest of the city's inhabitants.

" _No, not enemies, not foes_ ;" answered the deep and sonorous voice of the Father.

" _Yet they are important pieces in the play. And one bears blood of the Court. They should be treated as guests_ ;" answered the Mother, her voice gentle yet strong, like a calmed sea before a tidal wave comes.

"Then as guest they will be treated! Invited to the wedding!" the inhabitants of the city said in unison. "They will accompany the bride to the altar!"

And so they started to prepare, deep below, under the waves, deep into the ocean...

Here in magnificent Y'ha-nthlei. City of the Deep Ones.

* * *

 ** _Innsmouth; Massachusetts_**

 _I don't like this place_ ; Tohru thought as he and the rest dismounted Ratso's van and started to walk into Innsmouth's streets, he and his former coworker at the service of the Dark Hand carrying their luggage (which wasn't so much, they were carrying mainly Uncle's potions and ingredients); Tohru at his back and Ratso in his hands. _It's not only the smell, it's… something else. The sensation in that chamber under Miskatonic, that was just a remnant, but this feels… fresh_.

The Chan Clan, in the company of Ratso and Viper, had arrived in Innsmouth at dawn, after an entire night of driving from Arkham, trying to put as much distance as they could between that city and themselves. The sumo had to admit, Ratso's van was good and comfortable, big enough for him to fit in; but this must had been one of the most uncomfortable drives in a van of his life. Necessity to leave Arkham or not, and gratefulness for her help or not, traveling in a small space with both Jackie and Viper wasn't a very good idea. The two adults had been trying their best to avoid the other's gaze, but the fact that they couldn't was pretty evident. The revelation of Viper's motivation for have being working for White had been pretty shocking to them all, and the fact that Jackie was hurt by the fact that Viper hadn't come to them for aid was nothing but a spoken secret. Jade had remained almost the entire trip sleep, leaning against one of the sumo's arms, and Uncle had acted as Ratso's co-pilot; much to the former enforcer's chagrin.

And now here they were, in their destination, in Innsmouth; as the sun rose in the horizon and over the sea, and some people started to exit their houses and walk the streets towards the harbor or open their small businesses; mostly composed of grocery stores, a pair of funeral homes, a trio of buildings taller than the others that he supposed were an hotel, the town's church (actually a magnificent cathedral) and the town hall… and fish shops. Fish shops all over the place, with the names of the families that the sumo supposed run them over the doors. And that kind of establishments always meant…

 _Fish…_ ; Tohru thought in disgust as the owners of the shops put one or two metallic tables in front of their businesses; then covered them in crushed ice and started to put the damn, oceanic animal all over them; some of them so fresh that seemed alive. _I hate fish_ ; Tohru declared in his own mind. He didn't know exactly the reason behind his personal disgust over that type of animal. It wasn't a phobia, he could recognize fear when feeling it; but what he felt with the fishes was just… disgust. And apparently, Innsmouth's reputation as a fishermen's town wasn't just for show, as Tohru saw how many of the repugnant creatures were even from the deep sea, identifying even one of those famous Humpback Anglerfish, with its iconic antennae ending into a luminescent gland. Tohru couldn't avoid chuckling internally. For how much he hated fish, he really knew a lot about them, having to use some of the rarest species' parts in some of his chi potions. If this were a different situation, and they hadn't just escaped from whatever in the name of all gods in human history was that chamber under Miskatonic; he knew that Uncle would already be bargaining with the owners about those rare type of fishes. _Why a town of fishermen, of all things? I could stand it if it were just the shops; but this horrid smell_!

"And I thought that Dunwich looked old," Jade commented as they walked and turned a corner to access another street. "This place seems to have stopped its time in the thirties."

Jackie couldn't avoid agreeing with his niece. While Arkham was relatively modern and Dunwich had at least some presence of civilization; this Innsmouth looked like it hadn't advanced a bit. Like many of these towns of New England, especially the ones near the coast and the sea; Jackie knew that their structure was still the same from when they had been first built, with the houses resembling nothing but homes out of the second half of the nineteenth century. Dunwich had given him the impression of a place which houses had passed for several reformations, but the archeologist inside of him knew that these houses and edifications hadn't been reformed or changed in the slightest since the moment of their creation. That was strange, what kind of technique had they used to conserve them like that? They were old yet… they conserved themselves into the best of shapes. Not even the wood seemed to be decaying.

"Maybe towns like this don't need to change with times," Jackie said. "If its economy is based on fishing, as long as they can fish, I suppose they don't need anything else."

"You wanna know what I think?" Ratso asked next. "I think some people here look weird. Like… incredibly weird."

"That's just rude, man;" Jade answered. "They seem like very pleasant people to me."

Uncle was the one to react to Jade's sentence now, looking around, focusing in the few Innsmouthians that were in the streets with them. Ironically, the first word that came to Uncle's mind, even with the paranoia that had accompanied him and that had done nothing but grown since he had met with Joseph White; was the word 'Affable'. The men, women, children and elderly in the streets had all a smile in their faces, greeting their fellow citizens and the six of them with politeness. Yet like Tohru could, Uncle was able to feel the same unnamed feeling over the town. In the cobblestones of the streets, I the air and the thin fog that seemed to cover the whole place… there it was, this time alive, moving, looking. Uncle could feel it in the people too, and it wasn't just the overly big eyes, or the somehow strange skin with a variant green tonality to it. It was that all of them, less or more, but all of them gave him that feeling. His mind trailed back to that large chamber under Miskatonic and the photograph of that poor girl with an abomination sprouting out of her womb. There was something not right here, and the more the elder chi wizard thought about it, the more loose ends he was able to put together in his mind. But a part of him didn't want to.

 _You speak about justice, yet you let a good man die_. That phrase, that damned phrase. It had hit him hard. And right now, thanks to that phrase, another term had joined the word _Necronomicon_ inside his head, and that was the term Whateley Project. Damn it all, could _he_ be related to all this mess? It could be befitting, Uncle know that he was capable of things like those… He was growing more and more fretful with every minute.

"Not wanting to interrupt the lovely chit-chat…" Viper aid then, taking the old man out of his thoughts. "But where exactly are we going to go now?"

That question remained in the air, as no one knew how to exactly answer to that. Viper rolled her eyes at the effect her question had made over her companions.

"Armitage spoke to Jade and me about something called Esoteric Order of Dagon that had the _Necronomicon_ in their possession;" Jackie explained. "Maybe our priority should be to search for that."

"But we don't know where that Order is, or if even _is_ within Innsmouth;" Tohru said. "We could use some information."

"What about that guy we met in the bus?" Jade asked. "Boggs, wasn't it? He said he owned an hotel here, and I bet it's that one;" the teen said while pointing to one of the tallest edifications. "Maybe we can get some info if we go there, and that's not speaking about a lace to rest a bit. No offense, Ratso, but your van it's not the best place to take a nap."

"Is niece crazy?!" Uncle asked aloud, gathering some attention from the bystanders, and thus deciding to lower his voice. "We are in enemy territory!" he said in a whisper.

"And what does that change?" Jade asked. "Even if some of these people are as bad as that Waite woman and those creepy things you found under the university, there's no proof that all of them are evil and monsters. I mean, what would the probabilities for that be?"

"Jade is right there," Viper seconded the teenager's sentence. "If we don't gather information we won't be able to find that book you are searching for, and it would be good to have a place to use as reunion point, for not speak about resting."

Uncle grunted a bit under his teeth. "Alright," he said after a bit. "But we must have eyes open the whole time! Uncle doesn't want to get assaulted by some force of evil in the middle of his sleep! One more thing! We must not let known what our intentions are until we are sure that there is no peril. So no one mentions book to anyone!"

Jackie shook his head slightly, albeit during the following days he had to admit that Uncle's paranoia had proven quite right at some points. Except for Dunwich, that was sure. Even if Director White was related to that flayed man Uncle had spoken about, the one armed man's mother couldn't… Jackie took a hand to the side of his head then, as a sudden sensation of pain had started to pick at the back of his skull.

"You alright?" Viper asked him, making Jackie to finch a bit upon hearing the former thief to direct herself to him directly.

"Yes, just a small headache;" Jackie said. "Probably because of the stress," the archeologist said trying to find an explanation, even if the pain was dimming out now. And yet he had heard something, something strident when the pain came.

Violent play of a violin…

* * *

The ' _Gilman Warm House_ ' hotel was a pretty impressive building, that's something one had to admit. Apparently, it had been the mansion of one of Innsmouth's richest families in the past, the Gilman family; and thus was a very huge and ample building, pretty in the exterior and quite comfy in its interiors. The floor was all upholstered in greenish carpet, the walls and ceiling all made of natural wood that still smelled to forest. From the ceiling, small lamps hanged and gave enough light to see and read, albeit Jackie was sure that in the moment night hit the coastside town, the light won't be a lot, and thus the hotel will appear considerably dark. He didn't have any intention of staying in this place the whole day, anyway. The sooner they found the _Necronomicon_ and they get themselves back to San Francisco, the better. Upon entering, they found Ebenezer Boggs sitting behind a desk in the main hall, looking at his fingers as if he was looking for something.

"So y'all really came to visit beautiful Innsmouth, eh?" Boggs asked of the party of six members in the moment they arrived at his hotel and he noticed their presence. Apparently he hadn't forgotten them. Then again, Innsmouth received very few visits from outsiders, so the six's presence was surely noticeable. "Well, good ol' Boggs promised a discount, and discount he'll give!" the old man said while rubbing his bad dropped beard and clacking a laughter. "So how many rooms are going to be, friends?"

"Well, we are six, so…" Jackie started, but then old Boggs interrupted him by holding up a hand.

"Now stop there, lad;" man of the bad cropped beard said, surprising Jackie upon calling him 'lad'. "Good ol' Boggs knows that all of ya' are surely tired from the trip, and that the majority of you want to sleep alone and peacefully, but Innsmouth's holding a wedding tonight, and there're very few rooms free."

"Oh, you mean little Lily's brother's wedding, right?" Jade asked, remembering what the little girl in the bus had said to her about that. Boggs gave an affirmative nod.

"Aye, Barnabas Marsh is marrying tonight, under the moon," Boggs said. "Second member of that family having that name, the lil' boy. Hehe, time really passes very fast."

"Wait, does that mean that we will have to share a single room?" Tohru inquired in a polite tone, a sentiment that the others didn't share in the slightest.

"Nay, I still have three rooms free, and one of them is individual," Boggs said, taking three keys with numbers plastered into them from a drawer of the desk. "Here, 214, 215 and 216;" he read the numbers, before tossing the last one towards Jade. "That's the individual one."

"Score!" Jade said aloud while gripping the key and holding it up in her fist.

"Wait, why does she get the individual one?" Ratso asked displeased.

"'Cause a girl of that age needs privacy, friend;" the old man answered to the Italian-American man.

"Yep, I need privacy, all the privacy in the world;" Jade said, grinning like a devil.

"215 is for the gentlemen," Boggs explained, probably referring to Tohru, Uncle and Ratso. "And 214 is for the couple here. By the way, ma'am, didn't see ya' in the bus to Dunwich;" Boggs aid to Viper. "But neither did I meet the man in the bad suit! No offense, friend!" he said to Ratso, who rolled his eyes upon the man's commentary about his clothes.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait…" Viper said then, raising her hand a bit. "Who are you calling a couple?"

Boggs raised his hand and pointed to both Jackie and Viper, his index finger fluctuating between both of them. "I'm referring to you two, of course."

There was silence, then there was some unintelligible nonsense that Jackie mumbled, and an enormous shout of 'WHAT?!' from Viper, and then the two adults had started to yell to the poor man that they weren't a couple.

"Nah, ya' not fooling anyone;" Boggs said. "Good Ol' Boggs is the best knowing these things. You two are a couple, my gut says so."

"Oh, your gut is really going to be saying something once I kick…!" Viper started to say, but then Jade took her by one arm and decided to drag her out of the room.

"No kicks, no hits;" Jade said. "C'mon Viper, let's check my room, and then we will talk and calm ourselves…"

Once Jade and Viper had exited the main hall, Jackie took the key to the room number 214, his and Viper's luggage (which amounted to no more than a bag) and headed in that direction, in silence and with an angry expression. That left Tohru, Uncle and Ratso alone alongside Boggs.

"I touched an open wound there, didn't I?" Boggs asked to nobody in particular.

"You have no idea," Tohru answered, sighing and rubbing the back of his head. The sumo took one of the family's credit cards from out of his pocket. He found somehow ironic that he was, along with Jackie, the one responsible for carrying those. Even if she had progressed, Jade was still a teenager, and somehow chaotic in her organization, and Uncle surely didn't even know what a credit car was. Even if he owned a shop. Even if credit cars had been around since the first half of the twentieth century. "Here, Mr. Boggs, take your payment."

"Thank you very much, friend;" Boggs said, taking the credit card and getting his fee. Ha! Old city with old customs, yet they had enough technology to use credit cards and informatics systems. "And sorry for bothering those two, when my gut tells me something, I have to say it."

"I suppose it's nothing, Mr. Boggs;" Tohru said in his usual polite and gentle attitude. "You couldn't have known."

"Say, Boggs;" Ratso asked then, looking around. "This place's called ' _Gilman Warm House_ ', but you said you own the place. And you aren't a Gilman, right?"

"Ain't no Gilman myself, nay;" Boggs answered, rubbing his head. "But the last Gilman took to the water long ago. Left their old bud Boggs with the hotel, and I run it since then. It's hard sometimes… considering I got no family of my own still on the land. But Innsmouth takes care; so I must follow doing my job."

"Took to the water?" Ratso inquired again.

"Aye, gone to the ocean;" Boggs explained. "Those people that worship that man in the crucifix go to that… 'Heaven', nay? We go to the water, to the deep. So are the teachings of the Order of Dagon."

"Does Boggs-man mean the Esoteric Order of Dagon?!" Uncle shrieked, stepping into the conversation with the same delicacy of a truck striking a porcelain store. However, Boggs didn't seem to take that at heart, and just shrugged and snorted.

"Aye, that's it," Boggs answered. He ten raised an eyebrow slowly towards Uncle. "Why the interest? Want to convert?"

Before Uncle could retort, Tohru stepped in and answered in his sensei's stead. "You see, our friend Jackie…"

"The lad in the blue pullover."

"Right… Well, he has to do some research on the Order for his work at San Francisco's university;" Tohru explained, bending truth with the best lies he could think about. "And he decided to transform this into a trip for all the family. It would be great if you could help us, Arkham and Miskatonic… didn't turn out as we expected."

"Ha! Miskatonic is full of geniuses that are too full of themselves to use that genius," Boggs said. "But if ya' searching for the order, it's the cathedral near the harbor. That's the principal place for the mass anyway."

"Thank you very much, Mr…"

"We must depart there immediately!" Uncle yelled again, starting to walk towards the door.

"But what about Jackie, Jade and Viper; sensei?" Tohru asked.

"And what about our luggage, man?" Ratso asked too. "I have things in there," he said pointing to the wallets he had taken from Arkham. "Like my degree; or my diary!"

"Nephew, niece and thief have things to settle!" Uncle yelled from the hotel's gate.

"And I'll carry your luggage to your rooms, don't worry, friends;" Boggs stated, earning a thankful glare from Ratso in the process.

"Quick!" came Uncle's yell again, now from the street. Sighing, Tohru made a sign to Ratso in order to follow him, and they departed, but not before Boggs directed himself to them for the last time.

"Say, before you go;" the old hotel owner said. "How's that fellow old man named?"

"He…" the sumo started to say, but then realized that he didn't know about Uncle's real name. "He is just Uncle, Mr. Boggs;" Tohru answered. "Why do you ask that?"

"Reminds me of some young lad that came here once; when I was pretty and young too;" Boggs explained. "One of Mr. Black's… close friends, I believe. Jie was his name. They're quite similar, your old man and him."

"I don't know, Mr. Boggs;" Tohru said with a smile as he and Ratso started to walk again towards the door. From the opened gate, they could see Uncle already strolling down the street. They wouldn't have a problem catching up with him due to his age. "Perhaps you mistook him for other man, but he is just Uncle Chan."

"Yeah, that was it!" Boggs said then, making Tohru to look back at him with a surprised look. The old man had raised one of his hands and pointed his index finger to the heavens, as if that reinforced his sudden moment of reminiscence. He had a happy grin on his face, the result of the memory coming back. "That was the name!"

"Jie Chan!"

* * *

 ** _Room 216_**

 _Can't believe they don't have Wi-fi_ ; Jade thought as he checked her mobile phone. The signal of the phone was incredibly bad, too. Her room in the hotel was plain simple, actually. A bed, a window, a bathroom with a shower, all clean and prepared for customers. Speaking of the bed, Viper was now sitting there, looking at one of the room's wall. Saying that she was looking into the nothingness would be more appropriate, however. _But I should handle this first_.

"Hey Viper;" Jade said as she sat down in the bed too, near the ex-thief. "So… almost ripped that old man a new one, eh?"

"Sorry for that," Viper apologized. "He just said… and I saw red, that's all."

"Look Viper;" Jade started, trying to found an appropriate way to handle this. "You know I look up to you, that I always have. And I'm know it's probably not my business, but could you please… tell me what happened in Italy?" the mention of that country made the former thief to shiver slightly. Great, she had touched just in the right spot. "You don't have to if you don't want… but you two were super happy with each other one day, and then you took a trip to Italy, and poof! Everything's gone! I mean, three years, that's a…"

"Pretty long time, right?" Viper cut in. "Yes, I thought the same when I took that trip to Italy. I mean, Italy, considering how much of a dork your Uncle is, I thought he would like that place. I mean, being a dork is one of the things I like from him."

 _Like_ , Jade thought. _She said 'like',_ _not liked_. _Wait, so she planned it? This sounds a lot like those kind of things that people do when… oh no…_

"So we went to Italy, we took an hotel have the complete trip;" Viper explained, making one of her fingers to create little circle in the air. "We went to every museum in Rome, to the Vatican… Jackie looked like one of those kids that walk into a candy store. And don't misunderstand me; he was a total gentleman in every way, only starting with those cutely annoying expositions of his… so one day we went to this restaurant near the Coliseum and…"

"Oh my god. You proposed to him;" Jade said in a completely surprised tone, and Viper tilted her head towards her, and for the first time in her life Jade saw the ex-thief with teary eyes. Something was wrong there, Viper didn't cry. She had never saw her cry, in the same way she had never seen Jackie cry. Badasses didn't cry. But people did. Everyone cried.

"Yes, yes I did;" Viper answered. "I thought that your Uncle would never ask for himself, so I decided to do. He usually said that he loved that courage about me… I thought that he was thinking in a similar way that I did…" Viper's voice trembled slightly.

"And he just said 'No';" Viper answered. "And left."

* * *

 ** _Room 214_**

Jackie was carefully unpacking some of his clothes from his bags when he heard something coming towards the room he supposedly had to share with Viper. It wasn't even your typical room for two people, no. It was a freaking double bedroom, with just one, enormous double bed. Yes, because that was the thing he wanted the most right now, thinking about Viper and himself as a couple, right.

The noise sounded nearer and nearer by the moment, sounding very similar to someone stomping in the floor of the hotel while yelling and cursing. It didn't last long until Jade opened the door to the room with a kick, entering with the angriest expression Jackie had ever seen on the teenagers face.

"Jade! What are you doing?!" Jackie asked, concerned by the door, even if it hadn't occurred anything to it. good door.

"YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE!" Jade yelled at the top of her lungs.

"I'm what?" a stunned Jackie asked.

"An asshole!" Jade repeated. Something wasn't good there; Jade never spoke to him like that. Her hands had even started to ignite themselves in small flames. "Viper told me about Italy! Who could you be such a prick?!"

"Jade, wait!" Jackie heard Viper's voice coming right from the hall. The ex-thief reached the frame of the door, and looked at both of them. Jackie didn't lose two seconds before frowning.

"You told her?!" Jackie asked in an angry tone, but Jade interposed herself between the two adults.

"Oh no! You aren't shouting at her!" the teen said, her golden-like amber eyes flashing with fury. "Why shouldn't she have told me?! How was I supposed to know otherwise?! Would you've told me that you were an asshole?! And silly me thinking that this had been a misunderstanding … well no, you were a prick the whole time!"

"Jade, that's enough;" Viper told the teen from the frame of the door.

"You know? You're fucking right!" Jade said while storming out of the room. "This is your shit, not mine! You handle it! I'm gonna take a walk before I burn this whole motherfucking place down!" Jade walked the small hall and went directly to Innsmouth streets, stomping the cobblestone grounds as she walked in a state beyond fury.

Jackie and Viper looked at Jade go, the ex-thief entering the room shortly after. She looked at her luggage, and then looked around to see that the double bed and had a very similar reaction to Jackie's. Sighing, she started to unpack the necessary things she would need for a day.

"You should have told her," Viper told Jackie as she unpacked her things.

The archeologist continued with his unpacking too. A part of him was angry at Viper for telling Jade about what had happened, another one was angry at himself for not telling Jade, and another one felt… ashamed.

"I know," Jackie said. He breathed deeply. Perhaps Jade was right. It was time to talk about some things.

* * *

 ** _Innsmouth's streets_**

 _That jerk! All the time thinking that uncle Jackie had his reasons… and he was just a coward!_ ; Jade thought as she walked down Innsmouth's streets, turning around corners and entering alleys at random. _How could he say 'No' to Viper? No one should say 'No' to Viper! I wouldn't say 'No' to Viper!_ ; the teen turned around abruptly, then to the left of a street, and then into an alley that smelled to cat's pee. _They loved each other, and he said 'No'! I could have little cousins by this point! And I would take them to amusing parks, and then train with them… And Jackie and Viper could have been fucking happy!_

Jade stopped in her mindless rampage, and breathed in and out to calm herself. Some of the bystanders of Innsmouth had been staring at her the whole time, perplexed of seeing a sixteen year old girl just walking mindlessly around, cursing and frowning.

 _But I don't know his reasons either_ , Jade thought in a more calmed way. _Damn it, why can't those idiots make a thing simple? If you love someone, then you love him or her; nothing else! Man, look at me thinking this, glad Steph isn't here, or she would start talking to me about Paco again. I wonder how he's doing. What could he do if El Toro was the one on this mess? Probably nothing, I doubt that El Toro has any problems with women…;_ Jade started to walk normally, returning to one of the town's main streets step by step. _I need to calm down._

"Miss Jade!" a cheerful, innocent voice came from the other end of the street Jade was in that moment, and turning over her heels the teenage agent of Section 13 saw a small figure running towards her, jumping just a few meters away in order to collide with her chest, sending her to the ground.

"WHOA!" Jade shouted in surprise as she hit the cobblestone pavement and Lily, the small Innsmouthian girl she had met during their bus trip to Dunwich, now wearing a backpack full of what seemed to be papers; hugged at her strongly.

"Miss Jade, Miss Jade!" the little girl with hair similar to seaweed said while rubbing her little head against the teen's chest. "You came to Innsmouth! How're you?! What're you doing here?! Did you come to my bro-bro's wedding?!"

"Hi Lily;" Jade greeted the girl, not even bothering to ask from where exactly had she came from. After all, she did that all the time when she was younger. "Why did you charged onto me?"

"'Cause I wanted to hug you!" the girl answered while getting herself off from Jade, and back to her feet. Jade stood up too, and looked at the grinning girl from above. Then she proceeded to rub the small child's head in a friendly manner, making her chuckle.

"I can't get angry at you, can I?" Jade told her. This was exactly the kind of thing she needed, a distraction. "So, what especial mission are you up to this time?"

"Oh! Oh! Oh! I'm giving these out!" the child answered, pointing to her backpack. "Pamphlets for big brother Barnabas' wedding!"

"Someone is really excited," Jade commented, and the girl smiled and started to make small jumps.

"Of course I am!" Lily answered. "Brother will marry with politic sister, who's very nice and takes me to swim in the ocean! And they will be happy, and I will go swimming with both of them! And then I will have nephews and nieces!"

"Hey, mind if I help you a little with those pamphlets?" Jade asked her. _Because I really could use some time with a cute ball of energy like you in order to forget that my uncle's an idiot_.

Lily's face lighted in delight. "Sure! Especial mission with Miss Jade! Father and Mother are going to be so happy! Can I take you to bro-bro's wedding too?"

"I don't know, kiddo. Maybe? Are you sure your parents will be okay with that?" Jade said while little Lily took her hand and started to drag her across the seaside town's streets, giving one pamphlet with strange runes to all the bystanders they encountered. The girl didn't seem to give much thought to the teen's response. She somehow missed that, the years when she had been just a small kid, without secret agencies, when it was just her wanting to go into a mission partially to live an adventure, partially to mess with Jackie. _But this sure seems like a nice place, if they decide to invite the whole town to a wedding…_

* * *

 ** _Room 214_**

"I... put your clothes in that side of the closet," Jackie told Viper as he pointed towards the piece of furniture. They had unpacked almost everything needed for a single night. Even if Jackie didn't want to spend much time in this town, if they needed it to find the _Necronomicon_ , so be it. But to be so close to Viper again was...

"Thank you," Viper muttered in a neutral tone while she checked the bathroom they both were supposed to share. She exited it shortly afterwards,

Awkward. This was incredibly awkward. For Viper, on top of that, this situation was clearly frustrating. She hated the fact that they had spent fifteen minutes in the same room after Jade had called him out for what he did and he hadn't been able to say a thing in the matter. As always, she was the one that needed to give the first step. Yeah, because that didn't backfire last time.

Okay, here we go. "Why?" Viper asked to Jackie, who looked at her. "Why did you say 'No'? Back in Rome?"

"Ah..." Jackie whispered as he sat down in the bed. He didn't want to answer that question. He didn't know how. He knew why he didn't want to answer, but not how to phrase it. "It's difficult to explain, Viper."

"Then don't make it difficult," Viper said, maintaining the neutral form. _I need to keep calm; I did enough of a show before._

Jackie hesitated if explain himself or not. Damn, this wasn't the time for these things. And yet he supposed that if this wasn't going to be the time, it would never be.

"I was... afraid."

Viper stared at him for a handful of seconds. Then she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the room's door. She chuckled sarcastically. "If you say that you broke up with me after three years because you were afraid of compromise..."

"It has nothing to do with that," Jackie said while rising up and walking towards the other side of the room, looking out the window to the sight of Innsmouth, the sun starting to get high in the sky, a sign that dawn was starting to pass and that they were starting to get in the morning. "I was scared of…;" Jackie said while using his arms to gesticulate to the whole room. "Of all this;" he finally said, and albeit someone else could get confused, Viper understood him perfectly.

She chuckled dryly again, and sat down in the bed just like he had done moments ago. "At that point? Three years of being in a relationship, plus all the others you fought dragons, and ninjas… and you thought of it at that point?"

Jackie approached the bed and sat beside Viper. "When you showed me that ring, I saw a lot of things. I saw a wedding, and a new life, and even a little kid… and then what? How much time until some… High Apostle of Hades, or some Fallen Angel... or these Great Old Ones show up and destroy everything! Or kill me! What could happen when…?"

"How old were you when your parents died?" Viper asked suddenly, making Jackie realize of what he was talking about. Of what he really was afraid of.

"Four, I think;" Jackie said. "I don't remember it very well. One day my parents and I travelled to San Francisco. That was the first time I met with Uncle, his shop wasn't dedicated to shelling antiques yet. Then one day the three of them got out… and only Uncle came back. That day I cried until I fell asleep, that's the only thing I remember perfectly. I can't even remember my mother's face clearly, either my father's. When I saw you with that ring, the first thing that came to my mind was that ' _That's really like her, to be the decisive one!_ '. Next thing was: ' _I don't want any kid to pass for what I passed_ '; not in a million years."

"You could have told me that instead of running," Viper said, as both of them remained in the bed, looking at the floor.

"Being rational wasn't exactly my priority in that moment," Jackie confessed.

"Want to know something funny?" Viper asked after chuckling slightly to that last sentence. "I think that sixteen years old niece of you is more mature than both of us together."

"Probably," Jackie admitted. If not for Jade, none of them would be talking about this. "I'm sorry, Viper. For leaving you, disappointing you, and hurting you. I really am."

They remained there, sat in the double bed for a while, looking at the floor, at their feet. None of them said a thing after Jackie's apology… except for their stomachs. Right, no food to take to their mouths since that meal at Arkham.

"Do you think this hotel serves breakfasts?" Viper asked as she stood up from the bed.

"Let's find out," Jackie answered, getting up too and heading to the door.

"Right behind you," Viper said as a sincere smile appeared in her face. A smile her muscles had almost forgotten how to make, but that now they welcomed with opened arms.

"Tiger."

* * *

 ** _Esoteric Order of Dagon_**

Near the shores of Innsmouth, a church built during the town's first years of existence erected over the rest of the locality's buildings. In the past it had belonged to a small Christian community operating in Innsmouth, and it had been like that until Obed Marsh returned from his travels; bringing with him a new cult: The Cult of the Deep. With time, those new cultist took the place that the Christians had left, and with the passing of the years the Cult became Innsmouth's only religious order, changing its name to Order of Dagon after a decade, and then became the Esoteric order of Dagon; the name it had carried until today.

The church had been of course remodeled to suit the necessities of the new practitioners and cultists; and now, as Tohru, Uncle and Ratso approached it; the once small and partially mediocre Christian church had become a large building full of decorative ornaments, statues of idols run over its façade and ceiling all the way until the top of the bell-tower; a gothic church adapted to the new worshipping.

"It's exactly like Miskatonic," Tohru said aloud. "Only older." He was right in that; the imagery used in the ornaments was the same as in Miskatonic University, with the same strange looking creatures being represented in the façade. "Sensei, are you sure we should be doing this without Jackie and the others?"

"Bah! Nephew, niece and thief can take care of themselves! Sooner we find book, the better!" the elder said, albeit Tohru wasn't worried that Jade, Jackie and Viper were the ones in the need of help. Las time he had entered in a building in the company of Uncle and Ratso, it hadn't turned out well. "We must hurry and discover secrets behind this town! Uncle has a very bad feeling about this…"

 _We have been having a bad feeling since the beginning_ , Tohru thought. _And I'm starting to think, sensei; that there is something you aren't telling us_.

Jie Chan. That had been the name, and Boggs had said that sensei reminded him of that man. Could it be a coincidence? Or could it be a relation? Were the answers in that church, that sinister cathedral? Uncle seemed eager beyond control to enter there, but even if he said that they must search the _Necronomicon_ , there was something else motivating him. Jie Chan. It could be a common surname… but he had learned to not believe a lot in coincidences.

"So what do we do?" Ratso asked when they reached the church's doors. "Just knock and come in?"

Tohru shrugged. "We won't lose anything by trying." _Except our lives,_ he added in his thoughts; _maybe._

The mountain of man knocked three times at the church's gate, and after several minutes of waiting, they heard steps behind, and the gates opened slightly, revealing the face of a woman in her forties inside, with short bluish hair falling in a disorganized and bad way over her pale and somehow greenish toned skin. She looked at them as if they were the strangest things in the universe, and then opened the gate completely. Now able to see her completely the trio of men saw that she was a thin woman dressed in what looked to be a deep, dark blue version of a nun's gown; looking at them with wary eyes. She even could have looked afraid to any other person.

"Outsiders? Who are you? What do you want?" her voice was like a whisper, and if listened carefully one could note that she had some problems with phrasing, as if she wasn't accustomed to talking at all.

"I'm sorry for troubling you, ma'am;" Tohru said in his usual polite tone. His mother always said that politeness opened all doors. "But my friends and I are tourists here in Innsmouth. We would like to know a bit more about your order."

The woman tilted her head, and she seemed deep in her thoughts for a second, as if considering letting them in or not. "Tourist? Guests?"

"Yes, ma'am;" Tohru answered.

"Enter," she said in an emotionless tone, and she stepped aside from the entrance, letting the three men in. "But please, keep your voices down, we are in the middle of a rite."

The insides of the cathedral were dark, incredibly dark. They entered to the main hall of the building, where lines and lines of benches made of wood were lined in front of an altar. Candles projected a dim light that badly illuminated the place, and complete silence dominated, making the steps of the men to resonate across the hall. The woman's steps didn't make any noise, accustomed as she was to walk without disturbing anyone.

However, what took the trio of men's attention more than anything else was the group of six figures clad in scarlet hooded robes that were in front of the altar… and the altar itself. It depicted a large being with draconic features, such as wings and large, scaly limbs. But the head seemed like an overgrowth octopus, tentacles falling down as if emulating a beard. It somehow reminded Tohru of the form that Drago had took after absorbing all eight fragments of the Demon Sorcerers' chi; except that the being this statue seemed to represent felt… unnatural. It was such a bizarre sight, yet none of them seemed to be able to get their eyes off of it.

"Who's… what's that thing?" Ratso asked in a whisper.

"That's mighty Lord Cthulhu;" the nun explained. "The Order of Dagon is dedicated to its worship. Please, don't call him a thing or a what; I beg you."

"And Dagon?" Tohru asked then.

"Lord Dagon is our High Priest, and other of the deities of the sea alongside Mother Hydra;" the woman answered. "Lord Cthulhu's mouth and eyes until he wakes up from his slumber. And mighty Lord Cthulhu is the High Priest of the otherworldly and glorious Outer Gods too;" the woman explained with a hint of pride in her voice. She must have studied those words day after day.

"Iä, Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn!" the group of six members yelled in unison as they kneeled in front of the statue and started to bend, their heads literally smashing against the ground. "Y'kher ghe'rrikha, pa'thuss b'eah!"

"What was that?" Ratso asked, a bit scared by the sudden yell that had cut the silence of the cathedral.

"The language of Aklo," the nun explained. "Those six are the choir of the Order; the ones that take care after the High Priest. They are asking lord Cthulhu to bless the coming wedding."

"Iä, Iä! Iä, Shub-Niggurath, the'shil ookalt'shelem!" the choir yelled once more.

"Now they ask Shub-Niggurath to bless the union with many children," the nun translated. "I think… I'm not as good as them with the Aklo."

"Ph´nglui mglw´nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah´nagi fhtagn!" the choir yelled once more. "Fhtagn! Fhtagn!"

"In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu awaits dreaming;" the nun translated. This one was very easy; it was typical for them to end a rite with that phrase. "Dream! Dream! That's what they have said."

Tohru doubted if remaining where he was, running, or wield his blowfish and fire a combination of chi beams and eye-beams towards the six members of the choir. Cthulhu, Shub-Niggurath… Jackie and Jade had told them about those names, they had read them in that copy of the _Necronomicon_. This wasn't an ordinary church and order, this was a cult worshipping those beings… beings that, considering everything that had happened, were as real as him. And also, how was possible to be dead and dream at the same time? ' _With strange aeons even death may die_ '; had said Mr. Banski. "Where are the other members of the Order?" the sumo whispered to the nun.

"Oh, they went to prepare things for the wedding," she explained. "You know, this is a very important day. It's not very normal for a member of the Marsh family to marry an outsider."

"Aiyah…" Uncle whispered then, making Tohru and Ratso to look at him. The elder seemed to had lost all the energy he had when coming towards the cathedral, and now he just looked in disbelief and pure horror at the rite going on in front of him. That language, those words! He had heard them before! Oh, how could he had been so stupid?! How was he unable to make the connection sooner?!

"You!" the elder yelled towards the choir as he approached them in big steps. The six men rose up from the floor, and looked at Uncle, their faces covered in golden masks that mimicked emotionless faces. "Who are you?! Answer me, what do you worship?! What are you all planning?! Explain to Uncle for what are those words used for!"

"Sensei!" Tohru yelled, this time drawing out his blowfish for real.

"They won't speak!" the nun explained, apparently fearing the fact that Uncle had spoken to them so disrespectfully. "They made a bow to only speak in Aklo!"

However, nothing happened, and the six figures remained in silence, looking at Uncle as if trying to identify who he was and what he wanted. One of them extended an arm and pointed towards uncle with a finger. A finger that belonged to a scaly, grayish webbed hand; a fact that the three fake tourists noticed. The hand pointed to Uncle and then pointed to a door in the side of the hall, indicating to Uncle to go there.

Uncle looked at the door and then walked towards it, and Ratso and Tohru followed reluctantly. Opening the small door, the three of them accessed to an equally small room, an office of sorts. And there they found photographs, dozens of photographs filling shelves. And behind the small desk that they supposed belonged to one of the members of the choir, there was a big picture, hanged to the wall. In that photograph, eight men were lined up in front of the cathedral, smiling to the camera. Tohru was able to recognize the old man with his white hair in a ponytail and the black haired man that he had seen in that photograph under Miskatonic, with that girl. They were JW and RC, if he remembered correctly. The photograph had a small badge in the lower part of its frame, titled as ' _Jeremiah Marsh and the members of Whateley Project_.'

But Uncle wasn't looking to them, oh no. His eyes were fixated in the man standing most to the left of the group, at the side of a redhead man that the sumo identified a Francis White and another man with glasses, tanned skin and golden eyes that he didn't know about. The man, the young man (especially in comparison with the others) that Uncle was looking at with a horrified expression was a handsome Chinese in his early twenties or so, with black hair and a devilish smirk in his face. Even Tohru had to admit that he looked pretty… but the most troublesome thing was that he looked _familiar_.

"We must go out of this town," Uncle declared, turned around. "We must search nephew and the others and go back to San Francisco."

"But what about that book you came here searching for?" Ratso asked. "I didn't bring you all here from Arkham for nothing."

"Sensei," Tohru called.

"Book is not important! Our survival is! Uncle needs time to think, time to put all the clues…!"

"Sensei!" Tohru yelled, his face contorting into an angry expression. "Sensei, that man in the photograph; is Jie, isn't he?"

"How do you know that name?" Uncle asked in a raspy voice, which denoted both surprise at Tohru's question and the sound of that name.

"Boggs said that you reminded him of a man that used to come to his hotel years ago," Tohru explained. "A man named Jie Chan. Explain what is going on, sensei. I know that you know more than what you say. Who is Jie?"

Silence. Uncle didn't mutter a single word.

"Who?!"

Uncle breathed deeply in. He looked back at the photograph. Then he looked back at Tohru, and sighed in defeat. "Jie was the eldest son of Shin and Yu Chan; a couple of farmers that used to live in China before the revolution." Uncle made a pause that seemed to last an eternity. "He was my elder brother."

"And Jade's grandfather."

* * *

 ** _With Jade_**

 _Man, I can't remember last time I had such a fun time_ , Jade thought while she and Lily walked across Innsmouth, the little girl holding her hand and giving small jumps from time to time, giggling each time she did so. _It's hard to find places like this, especially when you live in a city as big as San Francisco_.

All over the morning, Jade had been helping little Lily with her personal 'mission' of giving the pamphlets to every Innsmouthian around. Everyone they had gone to visit had received them with a smile and politeness, and the best thing was that everyone seemed to know everyone. Every person they had given a pamphlet to knew that Lily was the youngest child of the Marsh family, and even if they didn't have to, they were incredibly cordial with Jade. She and Lily had even been invited to cookies in the last house they went to, and the old, big and fatty lady that lived here had even been joking with Jade!

 _I can't believe that something as bad as the Necronomicon is supposed to be can be in a town full of so many good people_ ; Jade thought as she and Lily reached a grocery store that belonged to a man called Dominic Olmstead, a big man with black hair and a thick, short beard that reminded Jade of some interpretations of the pirate Blackbeard she had seen in films. After giving out the last pamphlet, Lily had decided to take Jade to meet with her soon-to-be politic sister. At first, the teenage secret agent had argued that that would be rude, but Lily had insisted, using that 'puppy-eyes' stare every children was able to do and that she couldn't resist. Kids really were her weak spot, weren't they?"

After a quick meeting with Mr. Olmstead, who seemed a tad more serious that the rest of the Innsmouth population, Lily guided Jade to some stairs that descended into a cave underground, which have an enormous lake of water in it; probably formed from the water that came from the sea. The walls were all covered in luminescent crystals that casted a beautiful yet eerie greenish light over the cave.

"Whoa!" Jade said in genuine surprise. "Who could imagine a place like this is under the town?"

"It's pretty, right?" Lily asked. "Children learn to swim in these, so when we met the sea we don't get hit by the strong waves. They're always connected to the sea, and you can go in and out of Innsmouth using them."

"You really seem close to the sea, eh?" Jade asked as little Lily let her hand go and approached the small lake.

"Mom taught me that every child of Innsmouth is a child of the sea," Lily said. "And I love the sea! Politic sister!" Lily called. "Where are you?! I know you are here!"

Suddenly, Lily took off her shoes and jumped straight into the lake, surprising Jade to the extreme.

"What the hell?!" Jade shrieked, worry in her heart as she saw the child disappearing between the waves. "Lily!"

"What?" the little girl asked as she emerged from the water up to her neck.

"Oh god, you scared me!" Jade told her.

"But Miss Jade, haven't I just told you?" Lily said as she swam towards the border of the lake, putting her palms over the stone to make impulse and come out. "That every child of Innsmouth is a child of the sea?"

Lily took impulse and exited the lake. Her upper half got out of the water just fine, same as when it had gone in. Then her lower half came out of the water. And Jade saw a tentacle, and another one, and another one... all the way up to eight tentacles. And Lily stood up over the ground of stone, her lower half basically the one of an octopus.

"Do you like my tentacles, Miss Jade? They're slippery!" Lily declared; struggling a bit to maintain her balance in the land. "They said I should be able to leave land in a year or so..."

 _Shit..._ ; was the only thing Jade could think about. "You're... you're a mermaid?"

Lily giggled innocently. "No silly! I'm a Deep One hy... hee..." the child seemed confused for a second, rubbing her head a bit. "Something that starts with 'H'."

"Hybrid," said then a guttural voice that spoke from the water. "Deep One Hybrid, little sister."

"Big brother!" Lily cheered, and Jade felt as if she had lost the ability to speak.

From the lake rose another individual, that came to the border of the extension of water in the same being Lily had done. However, in contrast to Lily, this one was completely fish-like. Standing over two powerful legs with webbed fingers was a muscled individual that, had he been human, would have been basket player material. For a face he had a lipless, sunken-eyed visage, looking like nothing so much as a humanoid coelacanth. At his back there was a huge and spiked dorsal fin, gills adorned his neck, and his mouth was full of pointy teeth no different than the ones Jade had seen in some fishes. The worst part was that he wasn't wearing any clothing from the waist down much to Jade's chagrin.

"Good morning sister," the 'brother', for lack of a better term, greeted Lilly while ruffling her hair. He then looked at Jade and sniffed the air. He then proceeded to make a small reverence. "And good morning to you too, my lady."

"I found her, I found her!" Lily cheered, her tentacles clapping against the floor. "Isn't she magnificent? Wait! Politic sister should be here, I can feel her!" Lily took her hands to her cheeks, making a silly smile. "Where you two kissing each other?"

"Yes... kissing;" Barnabas answered while rolling his eyes and smirking.

Not knowing exactly what was going on, but knowing that it was surely a bad thing, Jade clenched her fists and engulfed them in fire, prepared to fight.

"Okay, don't know exactly what's going on," Jade said as she readied her stance. "But I'm sure it's not a good thing. Who are you?! Why are you naked?!"

"Why shouldn't I be naked?" the fish-man asked. "And the name's Barnabas Marsh the second, for your information."

"If you make a single move, I swear I'll burn you two to ashes!" Jade yelled.

"C'mon Miss Jade, you're supposed to be in bro-bro's wedding," Lily protested. "Don't be a party pooper!"

"There's no need for violence," Barnabas said.

"I beg to differ," said then another, raspy voice coming from the water, making Lily's face to light up in more enthusiasm. The water in the lake twirled, and then a small amount of it shot from the lake and landed in the ground.

The amount of water started to condense then, forming a long, serpentine form. A long tail, two thin arms that ended in four fingered claws… A feminine form resembling a more stereotypical mermaid with tentacles instead of hair took shape, stretching her limbs and looking at Jade.

 _Ah, you've to be kidding me!_ ; Jade thought in anger. "Bai Tza?!" the teen asked in shock.

The Water Demon narrowed her eyes at Jade, inspecting her from head to toes. Then she chuckled. "My, my; the little Princess of the Chan family."

"How much have you grown."

* * *

 **A/N: And… cliffhanger again! Man, this chapter was... shorter than I imagined, but I have decided to let some scenes out. I suppose I did enough with dropping the small bombs in this one. And yeah, Bai Tza is in Innsmouth. If you remember from previous chapters, when the Mi-Go handled that list of the Demon Sorcerers to White, he took interest in three. One was Hsi Wu inside Paco, other was the one infiltrated in the Compound; and the last one was Bai Tza, who had decided to play for the winner team… and marry a Deep One.**

 **To my dear and usual Guest Reviewer Matt, I suppose this chapter should be an answer to your question. Actually, I have very complicated weeks this month, and that's not counting the coming ones., sso updates of this story should be less regular.**

 **So, hope you all enjoyed; next chapter will be dedicated to a fight, a wedding, the first encounter of the Chan Clan with a Great Old One… and the _Necronomicon_ , of course. Bye, Bye!**


	13. The Deep Wedding

**Disclaimer: I don't own Jackie Chan Adventures; JCA and all its characters are the property of Phil Weinstein, Frank Squillace and Jackie Chan himself.**

 **A/N: Surprise! Yeah, it's me, coming right back with another one. I must say, I have been quite busy lately, but thanks to the help of some friends from work, I have some fee time now, and what better to do with that than writing a bit? Please don't answer that question… Anyway, here is probably the last chapter of the Massachusetts Arc, since I think I'll be able to wrap everything here quite nicely. After the conclusion of the Massachusetts Arc, we will have the Festival Arc, then the Advent Arc, and finally the Awakening Arc, finale of this fic. Now that this has been explained, it's time to get to the chapter. Enjoy your read, and as always, more notes at the end.**

* * *

Jackie Chan Adventures

Out of the Corner of the Eye

Chapter thirteen

The Deep Wedding

* * *

 **Untitled entry number one**

IHAVENOSKIN, IHAVENOSKIN, IHAVENOSKIN, IHAVENOSKIN…

He's inside my head he's inside my head he's inside my head he's inside my head he's inside my head…

T'fhel! Shen'therei!

I just wanted to live! I just wanted to change and be free! Was it so bad? To want to remain around my family?!

The music never ends inside my head! It's BREAKING me!

He never lets me alone! He never lets me sleep! I dream about dried planets, frozen stars and blood leaking out the core of galaxies!

T'fhel! T'fel! Wgha'reit dou'reit!

I have been good… I have obeyed you all… I sold my daughter to one of you…

I HAVE NO SKIN!

AND I CANNOT DIE!

* * *

 ** _Y'ha-nthlei_**

It all had started quite simply, back in another world, in another universe. And as anything that would be related to him in the posterior millennia, it had started with water. In the depths of a primitive ocean in a distant planet, to be precise; that was where he had been born... or reborn, anyway. He had belonged to a complete different species once; no very different that what the hominids from this rock known as human beings called fishes. Until the Cthulhi had found the planet that species belonged to and had changed him and his brethren. The Cthulhi gifted them with great intelligence and enormous strength; resistance far beyond the one of their original bodies. And so they changed, evolved; and they started to question things. The first question was pretty simple, yet complicated at the same time; or so it could seem to primitive minds. He was the one to talk, the one to talk first.

" _Who am I?_ "

The Cthulhi looked at him and then moved aside. Then _Him_ entered the depths, the massive, terrible and magnificent form of the Great Dreamer himself. He looked down at the new species his Star Spawn had created and then raised one of his claws, taking the one that had spoken first, like a pebble in a desert.

" _You are my Apostles_ ," the Great Dreamer spoke both in mind and sound, his voice making the whole planet tremble and the sea to agitate madly. " _My eyes and mouth all over the seas of the worlds I inhabit and dream in. Upon you I grant the name Dagon, and I entrust command over this new whole race, these children from the depth, these Deep Ones._ "

Dagon. Deep Ones. Yes, those had been the names, the names bestowed by the Great Dreamer. Dagon had been a faithful and loyal servant, and if there was something similar to the Great Dreamer's advisor or right... coil thing; that was Dagon. And in those depths of that primal ocean and that distant world Dagon and his brethren flourished and developed.

Until the Great Dreamer had woken up for the first time.

Then that first world had died, broken into tiny pieces, and the seas hadn't been the same anymore. So Dagon was forced to flee with his brethren by his side into another world and another sea, these ones smaller, where the Great Dreamer had started to dream again; for way longer this time. And so Dagon had time to reorganize and grow. It was in this world that Dagon had been called Lord for the first time. Apparently, these small beings, these creatures that inhabited this new world saw no difference between Dagon and his master. True, Dagon was too a Great Old One, but he was one due to the Great Dreamer's intervention and thus there were enormous differences between him and his master, mainly the ones regarding power. These creatures were so simple, so small... yet they proved with a high ability to adapt, be compatible and also to gather the attention of more of the Great Old Ones, and even of some members of the Court of the Daemon Sultan. With the passing of the years and the centuries, Dagon had found his species accommodated completely, and thus they had been able to grow.

Yet everything had come to an end once more, when the Great Dreamer had awakened again, the stars finally being right. Everything had gone down then, not only the planet, but also the entire cosmos. No more order, no more small beings, the Court unchallenged, even the Hunter had fallen in battle against the Crawling Chaos, destroying various solar systems in the process... Dagon, his consort Hydra and the little remnants of the Deep Ones that had been left, forced to flee to a remote planet in order to avoid the annihilation. Did Dagon feel something akin to love or caring towards his brethren? No, no something as simple as love, but there was a bond. Dagon wanted his species to endure and survive. That was why, when news of the King in Yellow's discovery of a reflection reached him, he had been in awe.

Now he had new oceans, new children, new worshippers, a new Innsmouth. The Design of the Court was there again, but this time was different, way different; a product of the desire of the Crawling Chaos to not lose his favorite toys again, no doubt.

"Father, Mother;" he heard the voice of one of the children, one of the largest ones with features akin to great white sharks; calling for him and Hydra. "Everything is ready for the wedding of young Barnabas and Bai Tza. We have located the humans, and the Herald to."

Dagon's body trembled a bit in something that some would call excitement, a fact that only Hydra was able to notice. Things were moving in a much faster pace than the first time. But after all, that was part of the plan.

" _Then start_ ," Dagon proclaimed. " _It is time to put all the pieces in movement. Make so that one of your siblings sends word to the Organizer of everything that happens here_."

" _And be sure to treat the Herald with the utmost respect_ ," Hydra added to her consort's sentence. " _The Herald is the key to the Advent, after all. And without Advent, there is no Awakening_."

The child bowed in respect and left the two leaders alone in the large hall. Only then, Hydra approached Dagon, curling her coils around him; and the two of them spoke at the same time.

" _Now, it is time for a wedding of the deep. A Negative of_ _八卦_ _will join the family, and the Festival will enter its main event!_ "

* * *

 ** _Inssmouth; entrance to the town_**

In the road to Innsmouth, a van not very much different from Ratso's was approaching the town. The sun was now reaching its peak, midday approaching. However, due to Innsmouth thick fog, which only grew thicker from dawn to dusk, this didn't do very much in favor of visibility. Only night skies were free of any cloud, and so only under the moon and the stars could you see Innsmouth for what it really was.

The van didn't enter the town per se, instead exiting the main road and stopping over a grass field. The vehicle's engine went mute, and its side door opened. Slowly and a bit clumsily, Ephraim Waite's robotic exoskeleton descended from the van, the jar containing his brain and one of his eyes that served as the spider-like robotic construct's head moving to one side and another.

The driver's door opened next, and this time Francis White descended; the flayed man inhaling deeply, stretching his arms and letting the air from the town to fill his lungs completely.

"Ah, Innsmouth;" Francis said, putting in a nostalgic voice. "We should come back here more often. Why don't we come here more often, Ephraim?"

"Because we have work to do back in Arkham," his friend answered.

"But just smell the air!" Francis said, inhaling again. "Oh, this glorious stench to the children of the sea!"

"I remember you that, due to my lack of a nose, I don't possess any sense of smell;" Ephraim said in a neutral tone. "And the only reason we are here is because your grandson practically ordered us to come and take control of things on the surface. And that happened due to your actions."

"My actions?!" Francis asked quite offended. "You were the one that almost blew them up with a missile! And Joseph wouldn't have known if your daughter could keep her mouth shut! What does it matter to him anyway? As long as the girl is the one returning alive, the rest don't matter!"

"I spoke with Randolph last night," Ephraim told the flayed man. "And it's not only your grandson's request, but also the Black Pharaoh's. We would do well to not upset him."

Francis flinched slightly, his hands becoming fists and then returning to how they were before in the blink of an eye. "So, you're still able to dream."

"Yes," Ephraim answered plainly, deciding to not rub more into that particular wound. He decided to change the topic. "I talked with Pickman too; he and some of the ghouls have been hunting that Fire Demon across the Dreamlands upon the Lord's orders. The dragon has been helping the Chans, the powers they wield are a result of some deal they cut, no doubt."

"You have to give them points for their tenacity," Francis said. "To those demons, I mean. Even knowing how outclassed they are, they continue to try and take a piece of the cake for themselves, thinking that they still can compete for the world. Has Pickman been able to take him down?"

"Not yet;" Ephraim answered, his only eye moving inside the jar. "Apparently, he is very adept into hiding himself."

"Well, at least Pickman gets to do some sport;" Francis said as the two of them entered Innsmouth. The citizens were already in the move. "We could get some too, that little fight under Miskatonic was pretty invigorating;" the flayed man said as he took another deep breath of Innsmouth's air into his lungs. A sadistic grin appeared in his skinless face and he threw his arms up.

"It's wedding time!"

* * *

 ** _Caves; Jade_**

"My, my; the little Princess of the Chan family;" Bai Tza said. "How much have you grown."

The underground cave part of the tunnels that travelled under Innsmouth had grown quite quiet after the appearance of the Demon Sorceress. The Water Demon's phrase echoed around the cave, both as a threat and a trivial comment. Jade, still in a combat position, her hands lighted in fire and her eyes narrowed towards the Water Demon. Barnabas and Lily were standing still, the only noise they were producing was the one of her tentacles striking the ground and his gills taking air in and out. How the hell could gills take air too?

"And, those flames are also a surprise," Bai Tza commented offhandedly. "It seems like one of those twelve powers from brother Shendu's collection. So he cut a deal with you? I hope it was just with you. It wasn't, was it? He did cut a deal with Chan. What a fool."

"Says the one who's marrying a… whatever that guy is;" Jade told the Water Demon, pointing to Barnabas.

"Deep One," Barnabas answered. "The name of the species, in your language at least, is Deep One. Or at least that's how the Yithians translated it. Then again, Yithians are known as very good translators."

"Okay, enough!" Jade protested. "Explain to me what the hell is going on here, and in Arkham, and with Director White, or I swear you all are going to be ashes in seconds!"

"Isn't it obvious, my lady?" Barnabas asked rhetorically. "This is a wedding. Between me and beautiful Bai Tza; this night under the moon."

"And you're supposed to attend, and smile, and clap at bro-bro's wedding!" Lily answered cheerfully. "C'mon, Miss Jade, it'll be fun!"

"You should listen to our energetic Lily, Princess;" Bai Tza told Jade, circling around her like a shark around its prey. "After all, you are such an especial guest, Princess."

Jade shot a fireball towards Bai Tza, hitting the demon and making her to dissolve into her water form. However, and as Jade suspected would happen, the Demon regenerated to her usual form once some seconds had passed. Bai Tza laughed smugly. Jade wondered, if she concentrated enough firepower over her, would she evaporate?

"Something wrong, Princess?" Bai Tza taunted her. That damn smile the demon was wearing was really getting in her nerves.

Bati Tza's remark was met with another, smaller shot of fire, this one directed to her arm, which was cut and dissolved into water as soon as it was hit. Bai screamed in pain upon the lost of her limb, but it quickly regenerated thanks to a mass of water that came from a small crack from the ground. Right, the ocean should be just under them.

 _Great plan Jade, fight the Water Demon near the biggest mass of water in the planet_ ; she thought while looking around, searching for a way to escape. If she turned around and ran out using the same way she and Lily had used… no, it probably wasn't a good idea to turn her back to these ones. Not that she actually liked to run from fights. _Well, this ought to be fun_ ; she thought as she accepted her current fate.

"That was for calling me Princess, by the way;" Jade told Bai Tza. "So call me that again, and I swear I'm going to find out how many times you can pull that 'grow back from the water' trick out."

"Stop calling you 'Princess'?" Bai Tza asked, and then a dry laugh escaped her throat. "Ha! Cannot! I have been learning since the King in Yellow destroyed and freed us from the Netherworld. I have been learning, since I found magnificent Y'ha-nthlei. Father Dagon and Mother Hydra, they gave me this new body, and they have taught me well. They taught me about the stars, about the whispers spoke only between planes of existence… and about you." Bai Tza let another laugh out after seeing Jade's expression. "Oh, and this is so precious! You don't know anything, do you?"

Jade quirked an eyebrow, effectively not knowing what the hell was going on. She charged another attack, but then Lily jumped between her and Bai Tza, raising her little arms and some of her tentacles.

"No! Don't hurt her, Miss Jade!" the little half octopus girl begged her.

 _Ah, damn it!_ ; Jade thought. "Get out of the way Lily. I don't want to hurt you."

"All this violence is completely unnecessary," Barnabas cut in, walking and positioning himself in front of his sister and soon-to-be-wife. He put both his hands at his back, and the Deep One's eye focused on Jade. "I bear the greatest of respects for you, but your struggle is both irrelevant and unnecessary. We don't want to hurt you."

"Well, maybe _I_ want to hurt _you_ ;" Jade taunted the Deep One, who narrowed his eyes at her. "I don't know what exactly is going on, but someone that is willing to marry someone like her;" Jade said, gesturing to Bai Tza with her head. "Is clearly not my friend. And you don't know with whom you're messing with here, buddy. My family…"

"Your family," Barnabas interrupted her. "Your family is being dealt with as we spoke. "My cousin Sebastian and the rest of the Choir should be taking care of those two wizards now, and as for those other two in the hotel Boggs and his men should be enough."

"My family can fight whatever you throw at them, you scaly face;" Jade told the Deep One. I'm sorry, Lily; but I'm going to scorch your brother a bit. She created even more flames around her fists and arms. "As much as I can fight you."

This time it was Barnabas who let a dry laugh out. "Oh, I'm very sure your family can handle some of the things we are going to throw at them; that's the reason some of the members of the city have come to the surface. If your family deals with the first wave, they won't get pass the second one. As for you, you aren't a problem at all."

"Wanna bet?" Jade said, clenching her fists in fury. Was this guy mocking her? Oh, she was actually going to enjoy beating the crap out of him.

"The Bastard of Yog-Sothoth send word of your arrival in the moment you left San Francisco;" Barnabas explained, and behind him Jade could see how Bai Tza's lips formed a cocky smile. "He told us how to deal with you," the Deep One said as he approached Jade, albeit his posture denoted that he didn't have any intention of engaging on physical combat. "He told us that it would be as easy as opening a closet door."

* * *

 ** _Gilman Warm House_**

This could have been worse, much worse; and Jackie was grateful it wasn't. Sitting on a small table in the hotel's small cafeteria, Jackie and Viper were taking each a simple breakfast composed of dark coffee and a croissant. It wasn't much, and actually Boggs had offered them some kind of dish made out of fried fish and small tomatoes… but they had declined. This was enough. And the fact that both of them were able to sit in the same room, even in the same table; was actually a pretty big step, or at least it was in comparison with their previous 'meetings', if they could be called that. A breakup, more than a year without contact, monsters, fights, and a talk… and here they were again. But it wasn't the same, no. That couldn't be, and both were mature enough to recognize such a thought as the truth. And so, they were cautious enough to make ninety percent of their talk to circulate around trivialities, with the other ten percent dedicated to discover what the other had been up to during the time they had spent without seeing each other. Viper discovered that Jackie's life hadn't changed in the slightest aside from the absence of magic, the archeologist finally dedicating himself to archeology. Jackie, however, discovered that Viper had passed for some short of 'perilous phase' after their breakup; not returning to thieving, but yes basically starting to work as a spy for the government that paid better. She had admitted that it had been in that moment when Joseph White had come to her with an offer.

They continued speaking for long, letting time to pass slowly as they ate and drank. As the minutes went by, the cafeteria started to get more and more crowded; a lot of Innsmouthians entering and asking for coffee. How Boggs was able to attend to everyone was something that escaped to Jackie's intellect.

"Jackie," Viper called for him, and as soon as he looked at her she made a discreet movement with her head to the left. Jackie followed with his stare, and he saw what the woman was telling him to look at.

A gun; a small revolver to be precise, and pretty old in design at that. It was hanging from a small pocket inside one of the customers' jackets. The man didn't seem pretty troubled with hiding it, and Jackie suspected that was because he wasn't trying to. But why would a man come to a hotel's cafeteria with a gun… oh.

Jackie started to look around, this time focusing in the Innsmouthians. All of them were men. Al of them big men in between their thirties or forties; and there were no families, or children, or women. And each one of them had asked for a single cup of coffee. Jackie sighed, and looked at Viper with a look that indicated a bit of exasperation. Not fear, or anger, but simple tiredness at the fact. Viper couldn't avoid smiling at that, making the man to chuckle. Of course the two of them couldn't simply have breakfast peacefully.

"Mr. Boggs;" Jackie called for the old man, who had conveniently finished serving the last coffee he had been asked for. He approached the table he and Viper were sitting at, slowly taking a small memo pad and an old pencil out of his pocket.

"Ya gonna take something more?" the old man asked, scratching the side of his head with the pencil as he did so.

"No," Jackie said before looking at Viper. "Do you want something else?"

"I'm fine," the ex-thief answered. "And we haven't finished our coffees yet." _Too much talking between, I think_ ; she added mentally.

"Have you seen my Uncle and the others, Mr. Boggs?" Jackie asked to the man.

"Yer old man?" Boggs asked. "Left with the big guy and the one of the bad suit when ya went to the rooms. The Miss got out after that, and she looked angry. And I mean angry."

"That... was probably my fault;" Jackie answered, but using such a tone of voice that it was hard hearing him over the hustle of the rest of the people. "Did you know where they went?"

"They went to see the Order, of course;" Boggs answered. "Said something about yer job having to do with it..." Boggs scrabbled something down. For the movement of his hand it wasn't some word, but some kind of small doodle. He had no intentions of taking any orders from them, or from any other customer for that matter. The rest of the people in the cafeteria had grown quiet as their small conversation had progressed, and Jackie noted how their bulging eyes were now focusing on both archeologist and ex-thief with not a very kindly intent on them.

"Another question," Jackie said. "Do you know why we are in Insmouth, Mr. Boggs?"

"Aye," Boggs answered. "Ya here for the Book of the Dead, I think. Good ol' Boogs thinks that it's in the great city, though. The only awaiting for yer old man at the Order of Dagon is the choir, and those have pretty wacky magic. They should have their hands full with them, and you with us. Nothing personal, really; I think ya are pretty good people. But these are orders from the great city. Ya have been invited to the wedding, and ya gonna go. Even if knocked out, but ya gonna be there."

Jackie sighed as he took the coffee cup and finished his coffee. At least they had enough decency to wait for him and Viper to finish their breakfasts. "A last question then," Jackie aid. "And this is for everyone in this place. Is everyone sure that he wants to be here when everything happens?"

No one said a word, no one moved, and Jackie let another exasperated sigh out of his mouth. Viper quirked an amused eyebrow to that sentence, putting on a little smirk as she did so; amused over Jackie's words. Sometimes she thought that this man was too polite for his own good.

"Were you expecting that to work?" Viper asked him, not hiding her amusement.

"It was worth a try," Jackie answered. "He made us a discount, after all."

The man that both of them had seen carrying a gun rose violently from his seat, hand quickly moving to the revolver and aiming at them. The next thing he saw was a blur, and then Jackie, moving at super-speed thanks to the power of the Noble Rabbit; punched him in the face. The added speed to the blow was enough to shatter the man's nose and knock him out. Another one tried to attack him by at his back, this one carrying a simple baseball bat instead of a gun. However, it wasn't Jackie but Viper who took him out this time; the woman jumping from her seat and kicking the man on the head.

The rest of the men around started to rush towards them, and the ones carrying guns started to shot. Moving faster than the bullets, Jackie took Viper and jumped behind the cafeteria's bar. The bullets missed their objectives, and the attackers were forced to turn around in order to redirect their charge. And behind the bar, Viper couldn't restrain a laugh, much to Jackie's chagrin. Was she having fun? No wonder why Jade and her connected so well.

Could fighting together help to soften things? In the moment both of them heard the last bullet being fired they exchanged a glance, and then jumped the bar.

It was worth a try.

* * *

 ** _Esoteric Order of Dagon_**

"Let us go."

Uncle's demand was met with silence. In front of him, Tohru and Ratso were the members of the choir, all of them lind up in front of the gate of the building, blocking the exit.

"Kaa n'tha'leit;" one of them said. "Jhike' tumek Y'ha-nthlei. Tu'shekna ir'thede."

"He said… he said you can't go;" the woman, the nun; said in a meek tone, standing a few meters away from both groups, trembling slightly. "He said… 'We cannot. You have been summoned to Y'ha-nthlei. And the woman will come too, in order to serve as offering'." The nun grew pale as she let the words to sink in her mind, realizing what the choir's statement implied. "No! That… that wasn't what I agreed to! You promised!"

"Ma'am," Tohru told her. "Please, stay behind us."

"Can I stay behind too?" Ratso asked, frightened by what he knew was an incoming battle. The two wizards had their blowfishes out, both of them already channeling chi to their weapons; Tohru's eyes already in flames with the power of the Pig Talisman. Yet the choir was standing firmly and without any doubt in front of the gates of the cathedral, and their hands, their webbed scaly hands… they flashed in yellow energy from time to time.

"Th'she… th'she shiruh!" a member of the choir, this one different from the previous one, yelled to both wizards, pointing to their glowing blowfishes. This time, however, the nun didn't seem in the mood to translate. Not that it was necessary, it was clear that they were asking them to drop their weapons. Not that they were going to do that, anyway.

"If you want Uncle to drop his blowfish," the elder wizard said. "Then you will have to take it from Uncle's dead and cold hands!"

The choir didn't utter a single more word. Instead, their response to the old man's challenge was for them to take their masks and robes off. Tohru's heart skipped a beat as soon as the robes and masks of the members of the choir hit the floor and their appearance was revealed. It was as if some depraved mind had crafted abominations out of his worst nightmares and had put them in front of his sensei and him.

Their detachment from their robes had revealed a much more sinister appearance. The sight of the six cultists had left way for a group of six tall, humanoid beings that resembled the Humpback Anglerfish that he had seen in the fish market. Each one even had the very same antennae as the animal! And there it was, finally directly in front of him. The unnamed feeling, the complete absence of chi… there it was again, emanating from these creatures, their whole existence an offense to everything Uncle had taught him.

"Th'dehn dhu'adkaan!" they yelled at the same time, and opening their mouths in order to show their fangs, their antennae glowed in yellowish sparks. There was a cracking sound then, and each one manifested a sphere of yellow energy between their hands.

"Tohru..." Uncle said in the most serious tone he could use at the moment. Yes, the sumo knew what his sensei was implying. This wasn't like Miskatonic, where they had a clear escape route. And this time there was an innocent that could get harmed. This was not the time for doubts or fear. His eyes' flames danced violently, and the green energy of their blowfish intensified.

"Yes, sensei;" the Japanese mountain of a man said as the two of them started to advance towards the choir silently. The six individuals did the same. One of them let out a roar, and Tohru let out a battle cry in response.

And then, green and yellow collided.

* * *

 ** _Gilman Warm House_**

 _It's almost as if we were bullying the poor things_ ; Viper thought as she kicked the last conscious man in the head, sending him to Morpheus' arms. The men Boggs had brought were now lying all around Jackie and her, the majority of them knocked out, and the ones that weren't with too much pain in their bodies to actually do something in retaliation. _It makes sense, I doubt some random citizens like these are too much of a problem once you accustom yourself to fight things like Shendu, Tarakudo or that monster of the subway_ , Viper sighed internally. _Jackie and I have seen too much to fall for this, especially when he can move at such speed_.

Speaking, or more accurately thinking of Jackie, he was now taking Boggs from the floor and putting him over a chair. The man had one eye blackened thanks to one of the archeologist's punches, and he didn't seem in the mood to keep struggling. Jackie moved his hand a couple of times in front of his face to help the old man focus, and then spoke.

"Mr. Boggs, I have another question," Jackie told the man. "Can you tell me what were you intending with all this?" he said gesturing to the defeated men.

"Ya… ya not understanding;" Boggs told him. "They are coming now, and you ain't ready for them…"

"Who is coming?" Jackie inquired the man.

"The ones… the Deep Ones…" Boggs answered. "They called for you… we're supposed to bring you…"

"Where is my family?" Jackie asked again. Boggs just snorted.

"Yer family's alright, they won't risk touching a hair in the Miss' head…" Boggs answered as he lowered his head and looked at the ground. "And yer old man and that big guy… I wonder if… the choir… Oh, dear Dagon, did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Jackie asked the man. He was growing impatient; this man was giving him just half-answers. He needed to know what was going on, why they had been summoned to wherever they wanted to take them. He needed to know where Jade was, where Uncle and Tohru were. Were they safe? Were they fighting like he had been? "Boggs, tell me what you are trying to…"

"Jackie," Viper called his name, taking. "Jackie there _is_ a sound."

The archeologist tuned his ears, and he discovered that there really was a sound. Something was making sounds in the upper levels, as if someone (various people, if his ears weren't lying) were inspecting the rooms, moving furniture. Boggs looked relieved upon hearing it, and Jackie understood that the men he had brought to the cafeteria weren't the only enemy inside the hotel.

"More friends of yours?" Jackie asked of Boggs. The old man looked up, and Jackie saw how he was now sporting a truly maniacal grin.

"No… it's them… they have come…" Boggs was sounding hopeful now, and he gave Jackie a nasty smile. "Don't you remember? Innsmouth takes care, that's this place's motto. Now the real Innsmouth is here to take care, Mr. Chan. If I were in yer shoes," Boggs said as he looked to the ceiling. The sound had started to get stronger and stronger… as if someone, a _really_ strong someone was pounding the floor of a room with the intention of piercing it. "I would start running."

There was a strong cracking sound, product of the wood of the ceiling breaking. From the hole that had been opened in the ceiling, or more accurately from the one that had been opened in the floor of one the rooms that were over the cafeteria, dropped something.

It was something large, bigger than both Jackie and Viper; something that should be around Tohru's height, and that was considerably thinner, albeit with the defined musculature of an athlete. Nothing to cover the creature's body, not even a loincloth over its modesty. Scales of a mixture of deep blue and green adorned the creature's skin, covering its entire body. And albeit the form in which it stood, over its hind legs, resembled something vaguely humanoid; the rest surely was not. The rest resembled a fish, an average looking common shark mixed with a human being, if such thing was possible. The creature looked in the stunned Viper and Jackie's direction, and then overlooked the defeated Innsmouthians. The creature proceeded to roar then, and more noise came from the upper levels. Coming closer, closer, closer…

"Tiger," Viper said, calling Jackie directly by the nickname she had once given him. "Jackie," she called again. The noise was coming closer, closer, closer… unintelligible sounds, as if the ones produced by animals, came from the hole. "Run!" she yelled.

Using the power Shendu had granted him, Jackie moved at super-speed, taking Viper like he had done when they were under the Innsmouthians' previous attack. Only that, instead of hiding behind the bar, Jackie opted to run out of the hotel into the town's streets. It proved to be a bad idea.

Innsmouth's townsfolk had gathered all around the hotel, just standing there, looking at the building. The affably people that Jackie had seen hours before were gone, replaced by emotionless individuals, men and women alike, forming lines around the building, not willing to let them escape. Jackie let Viper in the floor at his side. There were too many of them, and he didn't know if he could go through them all.

"You can't go away," the townsfolk, the entire townsfolk, spoke in unison. "You have been summoned, you can't refuse. You have been summoned by Father and Mother, you can't refuse. No one refuses."

"There is always a first time," Viper taunted them, and the townsfolk proceeded to produce a really uncomfortable sound with their throats, similar to a scream.

They heard something breaking behind them, and turning their heads around, saw the creature from before tearing the hotel's door apart, flanked by other two similar creatures.

"Nobody refuses the Deep Ones!" the townsfolk said.

From the hotel's rooftop, Jackie and Viper saw five more of those beings, standing with the claws of their feet and hands nailed in the stone and waiting to attack. Jackie had been at numerous disadvantages before; his many fights with the Shadowkhan were proof of that. But these… these weren't some shadow ninja that went poof after some hits or the proper spell. These creatures looked as physically strong as Drago was. Not to mention the townsfolk was still standing there, creating a flesh barrier. If he ran in circles he could create a tornado, but then the people…

"Tiger, hey!" Viper called for him. "Listen, I don't know what you are thinking right now, but we have to fight. Jade and the others are in very similar situations, and if we don't get this soled as soon as we can, then we can't go and help them."

"Yes, yes; thanks;" Jackie thanked the woman, and then adopted a combat position. Good news, the townsfolk didn't seem like starting a fight right now. Bad news, the creatures, the Deep Ones had been called, seemed pretty eager to do so.

"Let them attack first, let them make the first move;" Jackie whispered to Viper, who nodded as the two of them waited for the creatures in defensive positions. For entire minutes, the Deep Ones just looked at them without moving an inch. Then the first creature attacked.

Viper and Jackie jumped each one into opposite directions to evade the attack, and then counterattacked. Jackie hit the Deep One in the head, Viper aimed for the ribs. It proved… more efficient than any of them had thought, actually. It wasn't enough to take the creature down, but it did hurt, something proved by how the creature was forced to go a couple of steps back before attacking again. The real problem came when the other two Deep Ones decided to jump into the fray, and Jackie and Viper had to rely in avoiding attacks more than making them. However, Jackie noticed something very weird about the way the creatures were moving. Decades of training and practice in martial arts had taught him how to read a body… and these bodies were telling him ' _we are going easy on you_ '. Looking up for a brief moment, he noticed that the ones over the rooftop weren't moving. ' _You have been summoned_ ', they had told them. And realization came to Jackie as a current of fresh air.

"Viper, they can't kill us!" he yelled.

"What?!" Viper asked in confusion.

"They need us alive!" Jackie explained. "They won't risk harming us to death!"

Viper smirked. "But we can do that, can't we?"

The two of them adopted a more offensive stratagem then, Jackie fully using his super-speed to attack a Deep One without letting the creature space to breathe or defend itself. Viper was dealing with the other two, evading their attacks and making sure that each one of her blows counted. She was attacking ribs and vital bones and muscles, and albeit she wasn't sure that these beings' physiology was similar to humans' (their bones were far denser and harder to broke, for an instance) she was sure that she was actually making them feel some pain. She looked over her shoulder to see how Jackie had stopped using the power of the Rabbit Talisman and was charging towards what seemed to be a pretty damaged and equally tired creature. She jumped backwards in order to let the other two Deep Ones behind, and rushed to Jackie's aid. Coordinated to almost perfection, both of them punched the creature at the same time, sending it to the ground. The Deep One fell with a loud sound, back against the ground, conscience lost. This end resulted into the upset roar of the other two creatures in ground, and the same could be said for the ones in the roof top, two of them jumping from it and landing near their injured companion.

"Ready for another round?" Viper asked, panting a bit, to Jackie.

The archeologist, also panting slightly, looked at Viper with a funny expression. "Sure, but that one was very hard to bring down. If not for the power of the Talisman Shendu gave me, and the fact that they aren't fighting to their best… I don't know if we would be here."

"I will separate another one from the main group," Jackie said as he started to run, the power of the Rabbit slowly starting to power him. "Distract the others so I can- ARGH!"

Jackie didn't get to finish his phrase. He fell to the ground in pain, electricity coursing through his body as he had been hit by a bluish lighting in the back. Viper rushed towards him, kneeling at his side. When she touched him, she got a very nasty, although short lived, muscle cramp.

"It's not so easy to move at such speeds with electricity coursing through you, eh boy?!" she heard a voice. A voice she had heard before.

 _Oh God no_ ; she thought as she looked at the townsfolk, who were now separating in two crowds, letting two figures pass. In a few seconds, Francis White and Ephraim Waite were standing in front of the Innsmouthians, and the flayed man's hands had still the remnants of the lightning he had fired towards Jackie.

"Who…?" Jackie tried to ask as the attack started to lose its effect over him. Viper put a hand over him, indicating to him that he should rest.

"The creeps from Miskatonic," Viper told him. "Two of them, at least. The one with the red face is White's grandfather, I think. The other three weren't available?"

"The Pickman boys are better in Arkham," Francis explained. "Their momma lives there, after all."

"Our presence here is enough to make things to run appropriately," Ephraim said. His only eye, floating in the tank, looked then at the Deep Ones. "I presume you can take it from here?"

"Oh… Where's the fun in that?" Francis asked, shooting a cruel glare to Viper and Jackie. "Are you really going to surrender like that?"

"Don't taunt them, Francis;" Ephraim spoke. He knew his friend, he knew of what he was capable of. The brain in a jar had gained much better insight thanks to the process the Mi-Go had put his body through, mainly because without the appropriate body parts to stimulate the appropriate brain areas he was much more focused in the now. And right now, that insight was telling him that Francis wanted to do a stupid thing. Both of them, so similar once, had grown into polar opposite directions since aiming the means to transcend death. Ephraim had grown more logical, Francis (appropriately for whom he had gained his immortality from) had grown chaotic. Unpredictable, violent, erratic… and right now, that unpredictable, violent and erratic man was looking at the two individuals in front of him with a cruel gleam in his eyes.

"Oh, but why not?" the flayed man replied, charging another lightning bolt in each of his hands. "I mean, it's not like their wizards are locked in a fight with the choir, and it's not like that girl has met with Barnabas and the bride… Oh, wait a second. They have done exactly that!"

"You son of a…" Viper started to curse, but Francis shot one of the lightning bolts towards her, electrocuting the woman and making her scream. The flayed man laughed.

And that act made Jackie to stand up and rush towards the flayed man at the fastest he could move. He kicked Francis in the gut, making the man to bend over himself, to then proceed to raise both arms over him and deliver a pretty nasty blow in the man's back. Francis answered with only laughter. Jackie answered to that by putting his knees over the man's body to prevent him from moving. The archeologist applied his super-speed only to his arms, and started to punch Francis the hardest he could, mainly in his face, but also in his torso. But the only thing he got was more laughter.

"Silly boy," the flayed man laughed as he charged electricity. "I can't die, you idiot!" Francis shot a stream of lightning from his whole body, sending Jackie away. He got to his feet pretty quickly, hitting his left side, and then spitting a fair amount of blood. "I think you broke something there, or made one of my ribs to pierce an organ…" he spat more blood. "But then again, you could cut my head, and I would still be alive," he let out a sinister laugh then. "Immortal doesn't mean able to heal everything, you know? Isn't that funny?"

Francis shot even more lightning towards Jackie and Viper, making them scream. One of the Deep Ones roared at him, saying something in Aklo to the flayed man.

"Alive! Doesn't mean! UNPUNISHED!" Francis yelled, electrocuting both adults with his magic.

"Francis, that's enough;" Ephraim called for him. "You will kill them both at this rate."

"What does it matter?" Francis asked, and his voice sounded depressed now. "Considering what is coming, I would be making them a favor. And they wouldn't appreciate it. Would you?!" Francis shot even more lightning. "No, how could you appreciate it? The present that is death! If I kill you… if I kill you… would the Pharaoh grow angry? Would he… would he kill me?"

"Francis," Ephraim called again, and he prepared one of his exoskeleton's weapons. If Francis needed to be taken down…

"Frank," another voice called for him. "Frank, please stop that."

The lighting stopped, and Viper looked around with only one eye opened. Jackie had lost consciousness due to the electricity, and Viper was barely holding herself conscious. Behind the flayed man and from the same way Francis and Ephraim had come from; stood now another of the creatures, but Viper could see that this one was female. For starters, this one was female, thinner and more stylized than the other ones. That didn't say very much in its appearance favor, though. It looked as monstrous as the others. Except this one had platinum scales.

"What are you doing here?" Francis asked aloud.

"I live here, remember?" the female creature answered. Her voice was a mixture between a human voice and the creatures' barking. Yet the way she moved resembled more the one of an old and tired woman that the one of a monster.

"How did you know I was here?" Frank inquired her.

"Asenath told our daughter," the female creature answered. "And Wilma told me. We still have our ways of talking to each other; I hope you haven't forgotten about that." Francis grunted. The female creature approached him, putting a webbed, scaly hand over his shoulder. "Could you at least look at me, my dear?"

 _Wait, our daughter?_ Viper thought. _My dear?_

Francis doubted himself for a few seconds. Then, slowly, he turned around and eyed the female creature, whose webbed hand left the man's shoulder and stroked his chin. Looking at both of them, Viper could appreciate how this creature was a bit smaller than any of the other creatures, and she stood only a few centimeters taller than the flayed man.

"Hello, Lavinia;" Francis told her as he stroke the back of her head in the same fashion she had done it with his chin. "Hello, my love."

"Look at you, Frank;" the female creature, Lavinia, said as she approached both Jackie and Viper. "This is what you have been reduced to?"

She shook her head at the sight of the two defeated humans. "You had a lot of failures, Francis White, you were a bit arrogant, you were… pretty dirty in the bedroom, but not that I minded that. Yet you were a good husband, you were a good father;" she commented. "But you never were a petty man, not like this."

"You left me," Francis said. "When I became... this," the flayed man said pointing to his body. "You left me, Lavy."

"I left you because I had to," Lavinia said. "You could have come, but you were afraid. Fear was the reason you took the Pharaoh's offer of immortality, actually; because you were afraid of losing me and Wilma. And look where that took you. You could have come with me, and instead you choose to stay behind, without skin, your mind breaking as every day passed. And now here you are, trying to play your last card. These ones are important, both for our grandson and Lord Dagon. Please, Frank. Think about what you are doing."

"Argh!" Francis yelled, and he spat more blood on the ground. "Fine! But only because you told me, Lavy!" Francis yelled as he turned around and left the place. Ephraim followed after a short while, but not without directing a last glance to Lavinia.

"Thank you," Ephraim said. "I don't know what would have happened if he had killed them."

"The Pharaoh wouldn't have killed him," Lavinia stated. "What he did to Frank was just a joke for Him, I fear what could happen to my husband if left to His anger." The Deep One shot a quick glare at Viper. "The'dio she'thionaa;" she told the other Deep Ones, and the last thing Viper saw was one of the creatures' hands covering her eyes.

* * *

 ** _Esoteric Order of Dagon_**

Yellow and green, with the occasional mixture of orange thanks to the power of the Noble Pig; danced violently in the cathedral that served as a church for the Order of Dagon. Uncle and Tohru fired their spells at the choir, and the sextet of Deep Ones answered with more attacks. The blasts struck more furniture than anything else, one party able to block and redirect the attacks of the other. Tohru didn't like it; it seemed as if the choir was more focused in losing time than in actually fighting and killing them. The choir was clearly playing the defensive, and if he were a more arrogant man, he would think that the fact that the two of them were fighting against six opponents and not losing in the blink of an eye was thanks to their honed skills. But Tohru, humble as he was, knew the limits to his abilities, and thus he knew that these creatures were, for lack of a better term, 'playing nice'.

Uncle had reached the same conclusion. The elder had quickly realized that these creatures operated in the same kind of strange magic that the flayed man under Miskatonic, and thus he knew that chi magic wasn't efficient against them. Of course, chi magic wasn't the only discipline that used magical arts in order to accomplish something. There was western magic too, based more in enchantments and manipulation of raw energy than in the use of potions. Heck, even within chi magic itself he had only completely mastered the Chinese variant! But this magic didn't feel human or even part of demonic disciplines. It felt so… _alien_.

"Thaanke!" one of the members of the choirs yelled, and the other five put themselves in front of him and raised a yellowish dome of energy around them Tohru and Uncle took the opportunity to focus their attack completely in the dome, and meanwhile the member of the choir not focused into the casting took his hands to his temples, his antennae rising and glowing from time to time, as if he was communicating with it.

After several moments, the Deep One stopped whatever he had been doing, and then pointing to the two wizards. "Aha'entile! Mannega! Mannega!" the creature yelled in that weird language, that Aklo. "Mannega!" he yelled again, and the dome of energy disappeared, the six members of the choir stopping any attack they had in mind. Seeing this, Tohru stopped his attack too, and Uncle did the same. It would be good to catch a breath, more than anything else.

In that moment, the member of the choir that had last spoken raised an arm and extended his index finger towards the ceiling. From the tip of his finger extended a dome of energy that quickly became a spherical window in the air. After a few seconds, and to Uncle and Torhu's horror, Jackie and Viper's unconscious form appeared inside the dome.

"Ahentey garu'ii! Than'nagr haaveska thoeit!" the member of the choir, who seemed to be the one directing the others, spoke.

"He… he said…" came the voice of the nun, having found cover near some pillars alongside Ratso. "He said… 'We have your family! You will surrender and come with us!';" the woman explained.

"It's a trick," Uncle declared, gaining a worried glare from Tohru.

"Sensei…"

"How does Uncle know that creatures aren't lying?!" the elder inquired, his grip over his blowfish weakening as his hands trembled slightly.

"Thasu deeeringek faalsh'et?" the same creature asked with what Tohru could discern as a smug tone of voice.

"He asks 'Are you going to take the risk?';" the nun translated.

Uncle dialoged with himself for a few moments before looking to his former apprentice. Both of them threw their blowfishes to the ground shortly after that. Then four of the members of the choir surrounded them, other one directing himself towards Ratso and the nun, taking each one with one hand and dragging them to the center of the circle, even if the nun's screams of terror bothered him. Once every human was in the center, Uncle directed a hating glare towards the Deep one that seemed in charge of the choir. The creature answered with quite the nasty and arrogant smile.

"You win this battle," Uncle said. "But not the war."

The Deep One emitted a sound akin to a laugh. Then there was a yellowish flash. And everything was enveloped in darkness.

* * *

 ** _Y'ha-nthlei_**

Jackie started to come to his senses mostly thanks to the pain that his body was feeling. He felt as if someone had given him the fight of his life. Moving slightly over his back (he was lying over a cold, metallic surface, if his sense of touch wasn't messed up) he noticed that he hadn't been handcuffed, or anything like that. He started to remember slowly, how Viper and him had fought against those Innsmouthians and then those creatures. Deep Ones, they had been called Deep Ones. He remembered a lot of pain from a flayed man's lightning, and then nothing. Considering the pain some of his body's areas experimented every time they came in contact with something, he supposed the lightning had burned him.

He opened his eyes and incorporated slowly, looking at his surroundings. He was in what he supposed was some kind of cell, judging by the total lack of furniture or decoration, and the fact that the hexagonal entrance was sealed with some kind of yellow energy field. And he wasn't alone. All around the cell, lying on the ground as he was moments before, was his family. Plus Ratso, Viper and a woman he didn't know, who actually was the only other one conscious, curling into a corner and crying babbling incoherencies. He supposed that talking to her would be meaningless. So instead he decided to wake up the others. One by one, Jackie shook all of them, and they slowly started to come to their senses.

"Whoa…" Ratso said. "I had the weirdest dream… I was with Chan's old man in this weird church of this weird town, with this weird fish-people… Oh," Ratso said as he took conscience of his current predicament. "Oh right, it was true. Nevermind, I should be accustomed to the weird by now."

"What happened?" Jade asked, rubbing the side of her head. "Ah! Lily, and that monster, and…!" she looked around. "Where are we?!"

"Aiyah… keep it down, Uncle is trying to get the headache out," the elder told the teenager as he tapped in the power of the Horse, making the pain to go away. "Is anyone injured? Does anyone need to be healed?"

"Yes, actually;" Jackie told his uncle, who proceeded to use his powers to heal him, making the burns to heal and close quickly. "Thank you."

"What happened?" Jade asked again, this time referring to what had happened to the others more that to the situation they were all in.

"Remember that talking brain and the skinless man of Miskatonic?" Viper said. "Well, they were here. One of them electrocuted Jackie. And there were also these incredibly _wrong_ fish-things…"

"With scales and fish features but humanoid?" Tohru ended for her. "We met some of them in the Order of Dagon. They were… quite adept in magic."

"I suppose you didn't find the _Necronomicon_ , right?" Jackie asked Tohru, who shook his head in negation. Yes, that would have made things too easy.

"That's not even the first of our problems," Jade told the others. "Agh…" she rubbed the back of her head again. It was hurting a lot. Maybe they had took her out from behind? She didn't remember exactly how she had ended like that. "Bai Tza is here too."

"Water Demon is in town?! Aiyah!" Uncle shrieked. "This is very, veeery bad news! Uncle doesn't have the means necessary to exorcise her from host!"

"There's no host, Uncle;" Jade explained. "She is the same as when we first met her. And she's marrying one of those… Deep Ones," she said, remembering the name.

"But… but…" Uncle said, sitting and rubbing his temples. "That's ridiculous! For Bai Tza to gain her body back… even if she found a body similar to hers and transformed it, she wouldn't be the same!"

"She said that _they_ gave her a new body," Jade said. "Oh and remember that Lily kid we met in Dunwich? She's half octopus, and her brother is Bai Tza's freaking groom. Is almost as if the whole town has been playing us for idiots."

"You are nothing but idiots…" they heard the nun said, who had stopped whimpering and now was looking at them with anger. "Do you know where we are?! This is Y'ha-nthlei! The great city of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra!" The woman fell to her knees and put her arms around her head. "This wasn't supposed to be like this! I was supposed to learn and then marry a member of the choir! I was supposed to carry the sea's children! And now… they said I will serve as an offering!" she returned to the previous whimpering again, letting the Chan Clan and the rest with a very confused impression.

"She wanted to marry one of those fish-freaks?" Ratso asked, not hiding his disgust. He was always been a man with a lot of imagination, and right now he didn't like it.

"And here I thought Viper was the only one with bad taste for men," Jade commented, earning a glare from Jackie." What? I'm still angry at you."

"Jade," Viper tried to talk to the teenager, but she supposed this was not the time for such themes. "Okay, magic geniuses, how do we get out of here'"

"I don't know," Tohru said. "Sensei."

"Right," Uncle said, standing up and approaching the energy field. He inspected it for a few seconds, and then touched it, getting a small crap in his fingers. "Tohru, fire power of the Pig into this;" he instructed the sumo, who proceeded to do just that. The energy of the eye-beams struck the 'door', but the field absorbed it and redirected the enrgy to somewhere else. "Uhm, clever," Uncle commented. "This energy field is connected to something else, like a battery. Yet it feels magical. Technology and magic bend together, uhm…" Uncle mussed a bit. He had heard of the art of Alchemy, the bending of magic and science, but the information on that was scarce. "There is no way out."

"And?" Jackie asked, just for the elder to sit down.

"And now we wait!" Uncle said, dope slapping his nephew. "If fish-monsters wanting us dead, we would be dead already! Are we dead? No? Then we wait for whatever they want us to do and then we react!"

"Patience is indeed a virtue," a voice said from the other side of the energy field. "But I don't like you calling us monsters, little man."

Looking at the cell's entrance, all the people there saw the guise of Lavinia Whateley, standing in front of the cell and surveying all of them. The female Deep One looked a bit displeased at the fact that the nun was there. That felt unnecessary, the nun had been loyal to them, and she didn't deserve what she thought they were going to do to her.

"You," Viper said to her. "You are the woman from before."

"Yes I am;" Lavinia told her. "You can thank me later."

"Thank you?! For what, kidnapping us?!" Viper told her, but Lavinia laughed at her indignation.

"If I didn't put a stop to Frank, he would have killed you both;" Lavinia said. "So yes, I think you should be thankful to me for stopping my husband."

Viper didn't utter any more words, instead deciding to cross her arms and sit down. Jade, however, remembering that that 'Uncle Frank' from Miskatonic was the Director's grandfather; put some pieces together.

"You are the Director's grandmother," she said, remembering about Dunwich's paintings. "Lavinia Whateley."

"Lavinia _White_ Whateley thanks to marriage, Princess;" the female Deep one answered, making Jade frown.

"Don't call me 'Princess';" the teen threatened.

"Then how do I call you?" the Deep one asked politely.

"Jade."

"Then, hello Jade;" the female Deep One said. "You can call me Lavy if you want to. And yes, Joseph and Jonathan White are both my grandsons, in the same vein Wilma is my daughter. And before you ask, I didn't always look like this. I was fairly human-like when Francis and I had our child."

 _That doesn't make it better_ , Jade thought. _Ew, ew, ew… What's wrong with people wanting to screw with fishes in this town?_

"What do you want?" Jackie asked of the Deep One.

"Talk a bit," Lavinia answered. "I'm the only one, aside from Pickman, that hasn't met you personally, until now. We have a bit of time before the wedding starts, and then I will take you there."

"Why do you think we will cooperate?" Tohru asked next, much to the woman's enjoyment.

"Because you still want the _Necronomicon_ , and we have it;" Lavinia said. "And don't get me wrong, we want you to take it. So, if you play nice, you come to the wedding and be good guests, then you will be able to walk out of Innsmouth without any problem."

"This was White's idea, wasn't it?" Jackie asked the woman. "I'm not the smartest man in the world, but I can put two and two together. Mr. Banski, the reason the Book of the Dead is here… it's all connected, and it all goes back to White. This was his plan the entire time. To make us to get the book for him."

"If he wanted the book directly he would have it already, that's how he plays. He probably orchestrated this alongside Carter and the Thousand Faced God;" Lavinia told the archeologist. She then shook her head. "My husband has grown quite insane, but deep down, he still loves me, he still cares for me, for our daughter. Joseph is… Joseph is his father's son, the son of the Key and the Gate; with what being half-human entitles mixed within him. He should be unable to feel anything for anyone else by now, no matter how much he says otherwise, how chivalrous he acts. With every year that passed he grew more and more curious and less and less caring for others, and he wanted to explore his abilities. He cut a deal with the Black Pharaoh, and now is playing games within His games. And that means that he is able to keep up to His games. No Mr. Chan, sending you here was because we wanted to met with you all. I haven't met with a Chan in decades, but it's comforting to see some pattern in your face, little one," the Deep One told Jade, who was growing more and more confused with every second. "Yes, the form of the chin, the nose, and of course the way you look. And he was always a pretty man, no doubt about that."

"The hell are you talking about?" Jade asked as she approached the door. What the hell was this crazy lady talking about? She had met a Chan before? What kind of idiotic thing was that?

Noticing the girl's confusion, Lavinia's eyes travelled over the room until they met Uncle's. "Ah, someone has been keeping some secrets."

"What does that mean?" Jackie was the one to speak now. He received no answer. "What does that mean, Uncle?" he asked into a much more serious tone.

"Nothing;" Uncle answered, making Lavinia to laugh.

"And then they say that my family is the bad one," she commented. "Do you honestly believe that we don't know about you, little man?"

"Silence," Uncle told Lavinia, the elder growing more and more irritated.

"Ah, the righteous man of magic, the just and dutiful elder that sacrifices everything for the greater good… and that let an innocent man to die."

"Silence!" Uncle, having stood up and rushing to the entrance of the cell, spat with anger at Lavinia.

"Do you feel righteous after everything you had to sacrifice?" Lavinia asked. "Is the righteousness a form of atonement? Or maybe you just want to forget?"

"SILENCE!"

"What the hell is going on?!" Jade asked aloud.

"Did you ever meet your grandfather, child?" Lavinia asked. Then she sniffed the air. "I suppose not. Preparations seem to be ready… I will be back."

Lavinia disappeared out of sight, leaving them alone. And as soon as she left, all the eyes focused on Uncle, who was still standing in front of the energy field, hands gripped in fists and his whole body trembling.

"Uncle?" Jackie asked, his voice a whisper. "Uncle?"

"In the Order of Dagon" Tohru answered. "We found a photograph depicting members of the Whateley Project. There was a man in the group, called Jie Chan. Sensei said…" Tohru took air in. "He said that he was your grandfather, Jade."

"What?" Jade asked weakly. Truth to be told, she had never met his grandparents. Her mom usually said that it was something her dad didn't like to talk about, and she respected that. She had never had any great desire to meet them, or to think about them. A part of her actually thought that they had abandoned her dad, and that the reason behind not having any photographs of them in her house back in Hong Kong was precisely that. And now they told her this, this! Her grandfather had turned out to be a lunatic, belonging to an ever bigger group of lunatics! "Explain," she said weakly to Uncle, who just stared at her with guilt in his eyes. "Explain!" she shouted, and some flames escaped her fingertips.

"Jie was my older brother," Uncle finally said. "And he was the oldest of us three, with Han being the youngest."

"That… that's my father;" Jackie said.

"He was," Uncle answered, not without a hint of sadness in his voice.

"Why?!" Jade, completely enraged, yelled again. "Why didn't I know about this?!" she shouted as her hands became involuntarily engulfed in flames.

"I didn't know either," Uncle said. This was a serious matter if the elder had started to refer to him in single person. "For him to be involved in this kind of monstrosity, I mean. Jie… we never were very close with each other, I never really met him properly until I was practically an adult, and for that time he already was a petty man, a hedonist that cared first, second and third for himself. With the passing of time, that resulted in problems for the family. I opened my shop; Han married, and had Jackie with his wife. But Jie… He didn't marry, but there was this woman he had Shen with, albeit he had neglected both a lot. After a few years, Han and I discovered that he had started to do horrible things to people, to innocent people. Things I never knew about… Han and I decided to disown him with young Shen's help, and to handle him to the authorities;" Uncle breathed deeply, and Tohru saw something in the man's eyes. "We lost track of him after that, until we received news about his whereabouts. He had apparently died. And he is better dead."

 _There is something else_ , Tohru thought. _Something that he isn't telling us_. But he decided to not push the matter. The old man had had enough.

"What the hell?!" Jade yelled to Uncle, however. "Why didn't I know about my grandfather being such an asshole?! Secrets and lies, always secrets and lies!" she shouted while pointing to both Uncle and Jackie. "Why didn't you told me?! Why doesn't anyone ever…?"

"Jade, please;" Viper said, approaching the girl and putting her hands over her shoulders. "Please, calm down."

"Calm down?" Jade said again, and this time, instead of enraged, she sounded sad. "That Whateley Project… what they did, what… what does it mean for me?"

"That is a question for another day;" Lavinia's voice came again, and shortly after she appeared by the energy field, flanked by two enormous Deep Ones. "It's time for the wedding."

* * *

If Jackie had found himself in other predicament or feeling better emotions, he would be admiring the great and beautifully confusing halls of this, apparently, undersea city. As an archeologist, he recognized that whoever had built this place was an architectonical genius. Also, the fact that this construct could withstand the pressure of the ocean over it was proof of the makers' ability. But he wasn't in the mood to let his passion to come and make him marvel at the sights of this city. He was too confused, and angry, and also suspicious.

Confused over the fact that Jade's grandfather and his Uncle and father's elder brother had turned out to be in league with such monsters. Why? And why hadn't he learnt about it sooner? He was angry over the fact that Uncle had kept those secrets from them, and over the fact of how it had affected Jade. And he was also suspicious; suspicious over the fact that Uncle's story had some holes on it. And Lavinia had mentioned some 'innocent man' that Uncle had left to die. Uncle's story hadn't mentioned anyone that had been left to die. 'Secrets and lies', Jade had said. For years, Jade's whole dream had been to fight for the good in this world. That was the reason, behind all the thrill of adventure, behind all the desire to learn and progress; for her to start being an agent of Section 13. And the man who had given her that opportunity, he had turned out to be a monster. And now Uncle had turned out to have his own share of secrets too. And he himself had omitted to her the details over his breakup with Viper. Ah, shit. Family was supposed to care for one another, but also to be sincere. If there were secrets and lies, what did family matter? So the archeologist supposed that he understood Jade. Too many reveals in a very short time.

The Deep Ones ended up guiding them through the city until they reached an enormous hall, bigger than any boulevard in any city Jackie had seen. The ceiling was made of crystal, and it let the sea and the full moon over it to be seen. Moon? How many hours had they been unconscious? There, legions of Deep Ones, some big and some small, some with features resembling sharks, others octopuses, others crabs… there were innumerable of them. Jackie couldn't contain a gasp of terror.

"Chan?" he heard Ratso's voice. "If we make out of this alive, remember me to never help you again." And Jackie couldn't help but agree with him.

Drums. There were drums sounding, drums across the deep. As soon as Lavinia started to guide them between the legions of Deep Ones, Jackie was able to spot a familiar face between them. Bai Tza, the Water Demon standing in what seemed to be an elevated platform with a Deep One (who Jackie supposed was Barnabas Marsh the second) at her side. In the stairs that connected the platform with the floor, there was a little girl whose lower half was nothing but tentacles. Jackie recognized her as Lily, the little girl that Jade had befriended in Dunwich. And yet another deception. Or maybe not, because in the moment she saw them, she smiled and rushed towards Jade, taking her hands and starting to drag her from the rest.

"Miss Jade! C'mon, we have an especial place for you! Right, Mrs. Lavinia?" Lily said, and Lavinia shook her hands, indicating Jade to follow the little one. "Yeah! Come Miss Jade!"

Jade was dragged, a bit against her will, to the front lines of the Deep Ones, and Jackie noted how Tohru gripped his shoulder in order to contain him. Right, this wasn't exactly the time for stupid moves.

"The rest of the children and i made this for you," Lily told Jade, putting a collar made of teeth around her neck. "They're shark teeth! They'll make you strong!"

"Thank you," Jade answered, not knowing what else she could say.

"Are… are you angry at me?" Lily asked of her, and Jade looked at the little half-octopus girl.

"No," she told her. "No Lily, you're the least I'm angry at." Jade answered, ruffling her hair and making her giggle.

The drums started to grew louder, and the Deep ones roared. "Ah! It's about to start! Bye, Miss Jade!" Lily said, jumping slightly and kissing Jade in the cheek. "It was so awesome meeting you!"

Lily started to run towards the crowd and then Jade saw possibly the most unbelievable thing she had seen in her whole life, and that was saying something. At the other side of the platform Barnabas and Bai Tza were standing, there was a large, enormous lake of water, way bigger than the one in that cave. The water stirred and from it extended an arm not very different than the ones of the other Deep Ones. Except that this was a very big arm, as big and thick as a building. The arm was followed by another of the same size, and the full upper half of the body of the creature they belonged to followed them. A gigantic Deep One that somehow seemed even stronger, mightier, older and more inhuman than the small ones; his scales of a deep, hardened blue, numerous colonies of barnacles all over its skin, albeit none of the attendants was very sure of them being barnacles. But the most astonishing fact about this beast was its size. Jade had seen cargo ships in San Francisco's docks. She was sure that this thing could lift one of those enormous ships between its arms. Another creature exited the lake then, and this one was a serpentine being, as massive as the other one and with multiple heads over its torso. No arms, no legs, just something resembling a serpentine creature of legend, a… Hydra. The two gigantic beasts stretched themselves, and let out a simultaneous roar that shook the walls of the place they were in. All humans attending took their hands to their ears, trying to block the sound so it wouldn't pierce and destroy their eardrums. The Deep Ones, meanwhile, answered to their royals' roar with cheering.

"Dagon! Hydra! Dagon! Hydra!" the Deep Ones, and Bai Tza, cheered in delight. The male one, Father Dagon, raised one arm, and the place grew silent in seconds.

"Guy's enormous!" Ratso whispered, as he couldn't avoid breaking eye contact with the beast's sight.

Jackie's, and for that matter, everyone else's heads started to hurt after a few minutes of staring at the beast, and they looked down. That was Dagon?! Any Demon Sorcerer looked small in comparison!

"Jackie, hey…" he heard Viper. "Hey Tiger, what… what the hell have we gotten into?"

Jackie wasn't sure of anything anymore. The feeling; the enormous feeling of dread he was getting from that beast… Tohru was beyond terrified too, it as if he was a child again, and his mother's tales had come back to haunt him one thousand times worse.

" _Today is a day of blessing_ ," Dagon spoke, his voice a calm, cold sound that pictured a dead and calm black sea in the minds that heard him. At first Jackie thought that he shouldn't be able to understand what the beast was saying. Except that he soon discovered he wasn't hearing it by his ears... but inside his head! " _Today, tonight; a new member joins the family and an alliance is forged_." Oh dear goodness, it was as if nothing could stop that voice! " _Tonight, here in magnificent Y'ha-nthlei, we welcome Bai Tza and young Barnabas, of the Marsh family and second with that name_."

" _Tonight_ ," the other beast spoke. Hydra spoke. Her voice was as dreading and harmful as her consort's was. " _Tonight under the stars we celebrate their union and the beginning of a complete new breed of Deep Ones. Let the ceremony begin_."

From the crowd of Deep Ones moved one that Uncle and Tohru recognized as a member of the choir. The Deep One made a sign with his webbed, scaly hand, and two other creatures approached the group of humans, grabbing the nun that had been brought with them.

"What?!" the nun asked scared as she saw how she was being dragged towards the altar. "No! Please!"

Jackie tried to jump to her rescue, as did every other human attending; but they were quickly restrained as more Deep Ones took each one by the arms and immobilized them.

"No! No!" the nun screamed in terror as she was forced to climb the stairs to the altar. "I have served well! You promised me! PROMISED MEEEEE!"

Each member of the Chan Clan that had access to magic tried to call upon it in order to stop the Deep Ones... but they found themselves unable to do so, be it simple spells or the power of a Talisman. They struggled, but their chi seemed frozen. Uncle raised his sight to look at Dagon again, even if it made his head to hurt. The two beasts... was their sole presence able to block their ability to use chi magic? How was that even possible?

And so the screaming woman was dragged to the altar. There in front of the Chan family and the hordes of Deep Ones; there before the Father, the Mother and the soon-to-be-marriage... there the member of the choir pierced his claw into the nun's chest, and ripped out her heart, breaking veins and arteries in the process. The nun exhaled her last breath between tears of agony, and her body was throw down the altar's stairs, falling to the floor with no life remaining in her body. Jade, while being restrained like the rest of her companions, was thanks to her position near the altar the one to see the body I full size.

"You…" a weak whisper escaped her mouth. "You… killed her. You didn't need to do that…"

" _Neither we needed her alive, child;_ " Mother Hydra's voice came to her head.

The member of the choir raised the Heart in his hand in symbol of joy, and then he handed it to Barnabas, who gave him a grateful nod while taking it. The member of the choir pronounced then something in Aklo, and Barnabas bit into the woman's heart, his scaly lips becoming red. He handed the heart to Bai Tza, and she did the same, devouring the organ completely. And then they shared a kiss.

 _Oh god, I think I'm gonna puke!_ ; Jade thought as she tried to take her eyes off the two fish-people making out. The rest of the Deep Ones broke into roaring, their exclamations echoing through the halls Y'ha-nthlei.

" _Iä! Iä! Iä, Dagon! Iä, Hydra!_ " exclaimed the rest of the Deep Ones. " _Iä, Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn!_ "

" _Yes, dream_ ;" Dagon's voice echoed again in their heads. " _Great Cthulhu waits dreaming, but the Awakening approaches, prophesized by the incoming Advent;_ " the gigantic beast then looked directly at the humans. His enormous hand moved to the side, and the space around the Chans started to fluctuate and warp. " _For that and the blessing of your presence, we thank you; Herald. You aren't needed here anymore, go back to the surface. You will be handed what you came here searching for._ "

Jackie tried to scream, and many of his companions tried to struggle. But that only resulted in vain. The great undersea city around them had started to fade away, and the last thing that he saw was the towering forms of Dagon and Hydra, their sole image making his brain hurt. This wasn't fair, that woman was innocent! An innocent shouldn't die… an innocent should be treated like that. And there had been no enjoyment, no delight in her demise. It hadn't been an act of cruelty… they had used her in the same way someone uses a tool. When he felt the grip of the Deep Ones softening around him, he tried to rush to the altar. He wanted to _break_ that Deep One that had killed that woman… but in the blink of an eye, they weren't in Y'ha-nthlei anymore. No, they were in the entrance to Innsmouth, night having taken over, Ratso's van waiting behind them… with their luggage carefully waiting at its side too. The Chans and their friends looked around, searching for any signal, any other Deep One; or even Y'ha-nthlei's two royals. But the only thing besides them was the sound of Innsmouth itself; the voices of the civilians sounding in the distance and talking while they were closing their establishments to go back to their houses; as if nothing had happened.

The first thing that happened was that both Tohru and Ratso threw up. Uncle tried to use the power of the Horse Talisman to make them feel better, but that kind of power could do very little in regards to a physical effect that had its origins in their heads. Jackie and Viper, alongside the elder; were having the less trouble getting to cope with the experience. And Jade just kept staring at no point in particular. Viper and Jackie approaching her, the ex-thief slowly putting an arm around the girl's shoulders.

"They… killed her, just like that;" Jade aid in a weak tone. "I didn't even know how she was named, and they… they didn't even look at her, or enjoy it. They just…"

"You can't save everyone, kid;" Viper told her, and Jade trembled under her arm, rising a hand and manifesting a small flame in her pal.

"But I want to," she told the woman. "I should be able to."

"Why do you bother?"

"You," Jackie said threateningly as he looked at the newcomer.

"Me," Ephraim Waite answered. His spider-like robotic body had appeared from the own, its many legs walking over the streets and the single eye that was connected to his brain looking at him from the jar. In one of the robotic exoskeleton's arms, was a bundle covered in red rags. The brain in a jar approached them, and handing the bundle to Jackie. "I think you came here looking for this."

Jackie took the bundle reluctantly. Taking the rags off of it, he looked at what they contained. It was a book, a book with golden covers… no, they were covers made of gold. And the pages were made of the very same material. A brilliant, golden book that seemed to cast light in its own… and that was beating. There was a heartbeat in the book, a beat that Jackie could feel against his palms. And if he listened closely, he could hear some whispers too. The book was beating and whispering… it was alive. And Jackie knew exactly why.

"This is the _Necronomicon_ ," Jackie said. It wasn't a question, it wasn't a doubt. In the moment his hands touched it, he knew that this book what he and his family had been looking for.

"Yes, this is the Book of the Dead;" Ephraim answered. "Take it, it's yours now."

"I'm not White's delivery boy," Jackie said with anger, almost throwing the book to the ground. But he didn't do it. The heartbeat was pleasant.

"Be it you or any other…" Ephraim explained. "The Book will end in San Francisco. That is fate, and that I understand as a man of science. What you do, what you try to do, or think, or hope for… it is irrelevant. That same book you are holding, that same book and the Whateley Project… they were a shinning ray of hope for men like me. The fact hat we men of science didn't have to be constrained by morality, the fact that there are so many, many secrets to unveil… That is this universe's truth."

"You killed that woman," Jade spat hatefully at the brain in the jar. "And those girls Uncle and Tohru told us about!" her hands engulfed in fire. "And you are telling me, that you justify it, by saying is some short of universal truth shit?!"

"It is," Ephraim answered. "The universe cannot care about you, it never did, it never will. You will understand, after some time;" Ephraim's only eye looked at Innsmouth. "Francis is going to spend some time with Lavinia here, so I suppose I have some free time. Do as you please with the _Necronomicon_. Perhaps it will unravel some mysteries for you: Until next time;" and with that last sentence, Ephraim's body emitted a sound and it jumped in the air, losing himself in the streets of Innsmouth once it landed.

In the moment he disappeared, jade took the Book of the Dead from Jackie's hands, threw it into the ground and shot a fireball with it. The _Necronomicon_ , however, didn't get burned. Truth be told, it was made in gold, not paper. After a couple more fireballs, Jade desisted and yelled at the sky in pure impotence.

Jackie took the book from the ground and covered it again in its rags. He then handed it to uncle, who took it with extreme precaution, as if expecting for the book to burn him to nothingness. Tohru and Ratso seemed to have recovered already, and thus Jackie headed for the van, starting to get their luggage inside.

"What do we do now?" Viper asked of him.

"We go back to Boston, and then back to San Francisco;" Jackie said as his eyes flashed in a balanced mix of anger and determination. "And we put a stop to whatever White has planned to do. No matter what."

Without saying anything else, they took their luggage and entered the van. Ratso ignited the engine shortly after. And so they left Innsmouth behind them. Nothing else seemed more pleasant.

* * *

 ** _The Dreamlands; Unknown Kadath_**

 _This place is insane_ ; Māra the Sky Devil thought as he walked through the circling, twisting and ever moving halls and stairs of Unknown Kadath. He had tried flying before to get to his destination, but the city just kept changing and changing. There had been a moment in which he had been forced to walk backwards in order to advance forward! White had sent him here, saying that someone, a very big and important someone, wanted to talk with him. But how was he going to talk if he couldn't find the right direction?! _White, damn it; you could at least had given me a map!_

"Excuse me," the Sky Devil heard, and his talons nailed in the floor out of the surprise. It wasn't easy to surprise him, not since the fusion. Looking up, he saw a man with pale skin and black hair looking at him while standing on the ceiling as if it was a floor. "Are you, by any means, Māra?" the man asked.

"Yes," the Sky Devil answered plainly. "And you?"

"My name is Randolph, Randolph Carter;" the man said. "Please follow me; the Lord is waiting for you."

Not wanting to get lost again, Māra followed Randolph, flying until putting his talons in the ceiling (which become the floor then) and walking after him. The man guided him until they reached the same enormous, circular hall in which the Crawling Chaos normally received his visitors. Walking until the edge of the bridge that hanged over the abyss, Randolph directed himself to Māra.

"My Lord will be here soon," the man said. "He has gone to fly over the Dreamlands in order to relax himself. Please, wait a bit more." Randolph turned around and started to leave, leaving the Sky Devil behind.

"So, uh… your boss can fly?" Māra asked.

"My Lord can do anything," Randolph told him before getting out of the enormous hall.

Shortly after, Māra heard a screech, and an enormous winged creature descended from a hole in the highest point of the hall. It landed just in front of him, a monstrous bat-like being which's lower half looked like the one of a centipede. The being's golden eyes met with Māra's and for the first time since its rebirth as a fusion of two complete separate beings, the Sky Devil felt fear coursing through his soul. The monster noticed this, and closing its wings over, he dissolved into a mass of blackness and took another, smaller shape. And where a nightmarish bat had stood seconds ago, now there was a tall, beautiful bald man with piercing golden eyes and a Pharaoh-like golden beard in his chin, dressed in a complete black suit. And yet Māra was still afraid. Between the memories of Hsi Wu there was the one of what the King in Yellow had made him feel. This individual felt even worse.

" **Hello,** " the man greeted him. " **You are that… I'm sorry, I'm horrible for names, and yours is supposed to be kind of important;** " he snapped his fingers. " **Māra, right?** "

"Y-yes…" the Sky Devil said. " _What_ are you?" he asked, the words leaving his mouth almost instantaneously.

" **I'm a God** ," the man answered. " **An _Outer_ God to be precise** ," he extended a hand towards the Sky Devil. " **I'm Nyarlathotep**."

Māra took the hand and shook it. He felt as f his hand was touching nothing and something at all. This guy wasn't made of flesh and bones, just… something he couldn't indentify.

" **Great, introductions gone, let's go to the good part** ;" Nyarlathotep said. " **Now, let me hear it from you. You know what little Joseph is up to?** "

"More or less," Māra answered. In any other situation, he would have circled around the answer, toyed with it, and manipulated it to see if he could gain something from this. But not now. He felt as if he couldn't lie to this not-man. "I know what it entitles."

" **Yes, it entitles that girl one of your halves is in love with, or was in love with, which makes this whole new you in love with her… such a cheating emotion, love** ;" Nyarlathotep said, earning a strange glare from the Sky Devil. " **Don't give me that look; you know it to be true**." Māra didn't say anything, so the Pharaoh continued speaking. " **So I suppose you know what Joseph intends to do with her? And what he has already done** "

"Yes," Māra answered, one of his fists clenching. "He showed me what he did."

" **Good,** " the Pharaoh answered. " **Do you know why?** " he didn't get any answer, and his smile widened, the golden of his eyes gleaming as he did so. He snapped his fingers, and the images of several men appeared around him. " **A while ago, just a handful of decades; I engineered the creation of something called Whateley Project. It basically was a dating agency between some of my peers and some human beings. I was even there; hidden under the guise of a man named Robert Black, getting sure that everything ran smoothly.** "

"What does that have to do with anything?" Māra asked, and Nyarlathotep clapped his hands, making the images disappear and letting a sinister chuckle out of his throat. "Or with me?"

" **Don't worry; you are going to love what I'm going to propose you. As for the other part, you see;** " the not-man explained. " **For numerous tries and failures the Project resulted in what a human would refer to as abominations, beings that ate their mothers from within. I refer to them as problematic babies. It was very hard for the Project to product humanoid beings, let alone ones that looked human. And that's not speaking of making them _feel_ human.** "

"And that resulted in White," Māra said.

" **Yes, but little Joseph is just the prototype, that's why he was given the position of Organizer;** " Nyarlathotep said while clapping his hands again, materializing the images of a chinese couple holding a baby girl in their arms. " **This was, without a doubt, the definitive product. A being that looked, felt and acted like a human, but that is and will always be a child of Shub-Niggurath, a Thousand Young.** "

" **Our beautiful Jade Chan, the Herald**."

* * *

 **Author Notes: The Massachusetts arc is done! So I decided to end it with a bomb that I have longed very much to drop. Now this justifies why Jade was seen as a 'don't touch' by the cultist and White, eh? Now, there are probably many readers that figured this out thanks t the clues I left on the story. But for fans of mysteries you have now to figure what happened between Uncle and his siblings. The clues are all there, so try to figure it out! Having said that, next it's the Festival Arc, in which White takes central place as antagonist. And just for you to know, I have not finished with dropping bombs with Jade.**

 **Please, leave a review, and bye bye!**


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